Building Information Modelling

Building Information Modelling (BIM), we are told, has arrived in the construction industry and been widely adopted for complex projects. It is not tomorrow's vision but today's reality, and in a few years it will be standard.

These claims are made for BIM in a paper that was presented at an international conference in London in October 2008, concerning the use of BIM in the US.¹ A building information model is, in essence, an information resource in relation to a particular facility to be designed and constructed, but it is also a digital simulation of the facility that provides the ability to "rehearse" construction and updates itself automatically as more information is added. Thus the model will adjust automatically to design changes.²