In 2012, teenage Palmer Luckey created a Kickstarter campaign to fund the virtual-reality headset prototype he’d been building in his parents' garage. Just a few short years later, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg purchased Luckey’s company, Oculus, in a $2 billion deal.
“When I saw that, I said, ‘This is the time to go back to virtual-reality development,’ ” says Gonzalo Navarro, co-founder of ArX Solutions, a Miami-based architecture visualization firm. The company had been specializing in animated and video architectural renderings for design firms in the United States since the early 2000s, but the computer technology hadn’t quite caught up to Navarro’s vision.
“We were always keeping an eye on virtual reality because it’s something we were very passionate about,” he says. So, when he learned about the Facebook–Oculus deal, he knew the age of fully immersive virtual reality was upon us.
The rapidly growing sector of computer-simulated, building information modeling (BIM) and virtual-reality (VR) technologies has no doubt made its impact on the building industry. Traditional 2-D building plan sketches can now be brought to life with programs like AutoCAD, Revit, SketchUp, and more, and BIM software has streamlined the construction process to make it more efficient, quicker, and more accurate.
But multifamily contractors and developers have been slow to catch on. According to a McGraw-Hill Construction report, in 2013, 66% of commercial and 77% of institutional contractors were using BIM on projects in the U.S., whereas only 18% of U.S. multifamily residential contractors reported using the technology for apartment builds.
“These technologies made a name for themselves years ago, but nobody really used them right away because people didn’t know how, or thought it would cost too much,” says Mark Weisner, senior vice president of pre-construction at Greenbelt, Md.–based Bozzuto Construction. “We loved it from the very beginning because you can build things off-site and coordinate the work well ahead of time, which helps your schedule. As the technology grows, people become more accustomed to using it and the premiums come down, so it has become one of those things where it just makes sense for us to use it.”
The Benefits of BIM
Tocci Building Cos. has always seen itself at the forefront of the tech evolution.
In 2005, the company began "rapid-prototyping" buildings, a process that puts together building designs digitally to see how they would function before they're assembled in the field, the premise behind BIM software. While the specific tools the company uses have evolved over time as new programs have been introduced and advancements to the software made, the idea has always been the same—put things together in a model beforehand and see where it breaks.
“The detailed BIM tools allow us to take what would have traditionally been flat, 2-D paper drawings and pull them all together in different formats to really see how our buildings are going to perform and fit together,” says John Tocci Jr., director of virtual design and construction at the Woburn, Mass.–based building firm. “It eliminates head-scratching out in the field when we realize that a 2-D drawing executed into a 3-D building doesn’t always work out. Going down this BIM path for our company has allowed us to streamline our construction process dramatically.”
Specifically, developers are using BIM for clash detection, the process of finding where materials or systems in the building run into each other or are incompatible in the same space, and to find structural-system issues before the building goes up, a feature that eliminates mistakes before they happen to save time and money on a job. A BIM model can easily detect dimensional issues, inefficiencies, or clashes automatically in a way that professionals might not always be able to catch by looking at a 2-D building plan.
“You’re able to find dimensional and structural issues right off the bat, like if you have a concrete beam, ductwork, or girder trusses that conflict with parking spaces or aisle widths, for example,” says Bozzuto's Weisner, who has used the technology on some of the firm’s more complicated projects in the Washington, D.C., area, including some with many concrete-and-steel structural components. “If you’re able to resolve those things ahead of time and know everything is in the right place, it solves problems down the road and doesn’t create delays.”
When architects or construction professionals do need to make a change, doing it in a 3-D model is quick and easy.
“With BIM, everything is front-loaded and done in real time, which allows us to make changes or improvements on the fly, even last minute,” says Doris Gantos, senior vice president of Bozzuto Development Co. “The changes impact all the drawings associated with it without significant impact to the project’s schedule.”
Not only does using BIM keep a project schedule on track—or even speed up the time it takes to complete a project—but the software can give construction professionals visualizations of how the project will look during future phases of a build.
“We can get a look into the future by attaching these models to our detailed schedule and say, ‘What’s our project going to look like on a certain day and at a certain time?’’ says Tocci. “We can look at a project on an almost day-by-day, week-by-week basis and be able to do that simply by dragging a slider across our schedule to visualize exactly where all of our fence lines are, where all of our construction deliveries are coming in, and seeing how those pathways intersect and how they touch during what time of day.”
The representation provided by a BIM model modernizes the construction process, bringing together all of the project’s pieces prior to groundbreaking in an illustration that is ultimately more realistic than what could be imaged by the human mind.
“There is less mystery between a 2-D representation of an elevation and what the finished product will actually look like. Something might look good at elevation, but when you actually see the model, it might be something different,” says Terry Willis, principal at architecture firm KTGY’s Denver office. “These models give you more confidence that what is ultimately going to be built is what you were after.”
—John Tocci Jr., director of virtual design and construction, Tocci Building Cos.
A Living, Breathing Design
The benefits of BIM aren't all exhausted during the construction phase of a build. With advancements in virtua-reality technology, the computer-generated models can be turned into realistic 3-D renderings of the building and its floor plans, giving those working on the design a lifelike view into how the building will look and feel and the ability to experience the building as if it’s finished.
“With virtual reality, we finally have the interlink between all of these construction and architecture tools, and it’s an add-on to the entire rapid-prototyping digital-fabrication process,” says Tocci. “We now have the ability to turn those models into something we can use to first understand how things are actually going to fit together on a site, and then put something into the hands of the people trying to lease or sell units later.”
ArX Solutions has been specializing in architectural renderings since the late '90s. Virtual-reality technology elevated the firm’s visualizations from animations and video walk-throughs to fully-immersive 3-D renderings that users can experience with a VR headset or goggles, such as Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear, or even the Google cardboard headset. The company’s applications, Arx Interactive and ArXperience 360, have allowed clients to not only see a building design as it will look, but experience it, as well, all prior to construction.
“A rendering just shows the ideal version of one thing, but when you wear these devices it is the real thing. You can tell how tall, how deep, how big, or how small things are, or the lighting, textures, and shadows of the space,” says Navarro. “When people see a rendering, they just say, 'Oh that’s nice,’ or, ‘I don’t like it,' and that’s all the reaction you get. When you get this into somebody’s hands and you put the goggles on their face, it changes the whole experience.”
The renderings provide a lifelike experience down to the finishes and materials that will be used in the building. Willis says KTGY sends its plans in a BIM model to a renderer to illustrate with enhancements and turn into 3-D designs, similar to what ArX Solutions does. As an architecture firm, KTGY uses these models as a way to communicate to contractors and developers what the finished product should look like.
“When we give the BIM information to a renderer, they enhance the realism of the actual materials represented. If it’s a glass surface or a shiny surface, for example, the renderer can actually illustrate reflectivity,” says Willis. “With VR, we can put ourselves inside [the models], get in the space, and see what it’s like. The purpose is really to show someone what it’s going to feel like and live like.”
Developers have found VR to be particularly helpful when designing individual units. Bozzuto's Gantos recently began working on the second phase of a transit-oriented apartment development in Gaithersburg, Md., a suburb outside of Washington, D.C. The project’s development team has been using VR technology to enhance the design process of the building’s interior and troubleshoot floor-plan layouts, a first for Gantos.
“Where it’s most helpful to me is when we're creating our floor plans. They're often just hand-sketched, and if you’ve been doing this for a while you can get to a certain level of confidence that the floor plan is going to be good, but not everyone is visual,” she says. “This technology really allows you to be inside the space, see how it functions, and realize how it lives and breathes.”
“You’re able to stand in the space and actually maneuver around to see where windows are located to make sure there's enough sunlight, make sure you have enough clearance space in kitchens or with door openings, or make sure the span of the wall is sufficient enough to furnish the apartment,” Gantos continues. “It helps with the extra step of making sure that we're delivering a project or unit that will be well received.”
Just like the reduction in errors BIM software can bring to a project, doing a virtual walk-through to experience the unit design before construction begins allows architects and developers to detect problem areas and alter them before it’s too late.
“We’re able to really say, ‘Did we intend for this to be our residents’ experience when opening this door, or cooking and reaching to grab something out of the fridge?' ” says Tocci. “VR is part of a thoughtful process that allows us to ask those questions when our building is still just bits and bites, instead of having a campfire around a problem inside an already built unit—especially when it’s a unit that repeats many times in a building.”
“We’re able to have these discussions when the design is still digital and we can make a change that doesn’t involve ripping work down and replacing it,” he continues. “We find the highest-quality work is the work that goes in right the first time and doesn’t get touched again.”
