Apart from Geometry, any Architecture-Engineering-Construction project has three more dimensions. They are the cost of construction, the time required from start to finish, and the final quality. The traditional tools of planning and designing, imposed numerous physical barriers between all stakeholders in a building, ranging from clients, designers, planners, engineers, workers, contractors, material suppliers, vendors, and developers to the facility’s end user. These physical barriers increased the cost and time of completion hugely while decreasing the output quality. This resulted in sluggishness in the entire industry.
Design BIM Studio (DBS) has completely removed these physical barriers, sluggishness, and thus all conflicts between all stakeholders by removing this 2D platform from the previous era and replacing it with a futuristic, virtual, and highly-visual 3D BIM model. Under the exemplary and visionary leadership of Ar. Viral Bhatt, Principal Architect, Director – Design and BIM, DBS is offering three most crucial benefits to all the stakeholders – Reduced Cost, Saved Time, and Enhanced Quality.
Controlling the Change
Viral explains that the process and methodology of creating a virtual representation of the building facility, BIM can also be conceptualized as a Platform or technology used by the software. He puts, “It is all about creating a parametric digital model of the facility as a central database from where one can extract real-time plans, elevations, sections, 3D views, and quantities at any time. It is a ‘change anywhere, change everywhere’ kind of concept.”
Along with Design Consultancy, DBS also provides BIM Consultancy. Practicing Architects and Experienced engineers working as BIM Consultants would be an added advantage. Viral further adds that it is always better to visualize the design in 3D over 2D. Similarly, nothing is better than having parametric 3D geometry with additional technical information. It helps designers to visualize, present and coordinate their design; owners to review; engineers to manage and contractors to build.
Viral states, “With our ingenious team of Architects, Interior Designers, and Engineers, we offer various design, building information modeling, and project management services to our clients through collaborative approach and technology that improves the living environment.”
Creative Innovation
At DBS, Viral and the team believe that innovation and creativity are their first derivative of balancing the systems of program, economy, site, and the human sense of well-being. “Although our approach can be imperial and meet the practical requirements of our projects which are prior to ordinary by making every design decision meaningful in terms of craft and economy; most importantly keeping the conditions for the occupants comfortable and favorable to mental and physical well-being, affordability and sustainability,” he insists.
DBS provides a wide range of services for an even wider range of project types, including large-scale Residential, Commercial, and Integrated hospitality developments, academic institutions, interior design, landscape design, and supplement project development.
DBS has established on the principles of space and proportion. “We believe that successful design is achieved through clear objectives, a logical process, and creative execution. Our client’s satisfaction is our primary focus. The challenge they face is the starting point to our inspiration and innovation,” expresses Viral.
An Impeccable Leadership in Excellence
Viral, an Architect, Director, and Founder of Design BIM Studio is a passionate person, an enthusiastic learner, and a successful designer. He completed his graduation of B.Arch. at Indubhai Parekh School of Architecture, Rajkot, Gujarat, and continued his education by pursuing Post-Graduation: Project Management (PGPPM) at the National Institute of Construction Management and Research, Pune, Maharashtra. He has enhanced his knowledge in Real Estate Management by pursuing a course at the Real Estate Studies & Management Academy, Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
Viral has completed a handful of projects in India proficiently. The work shows his flawless skills in the area of Real Estate Development, Designing of Institutional Buildings, Housing, and Recreational Buildings. He has also exhibited his excellence in the area of BIM and its usage in global as well as local construction technologies. He has impeccable ability for BIM-based softwares; related training and implementation. Apart from professional practice using BIM; Viral is also involved in helping students explore design and construction management with BIM technology at CEPT University, NIRMA University, Anant University, Swarnim Sankul & Start-up University, and many more. He has also extended the Design Studio as DBS ACADEMY, an academic wing, BIM Training Institute.
Along with Architectural Design, Interior Design, Master Planning, Turnkey Execution provided by DBS, Viral says that they also include,
BIM for Design Visualization
DBS has developed various techniques to get the required visual deliverables at different stages of the project. With such high-end visuals; from client to contractor and end user of the facility everyone is benefited in their respective activities.
BIM for Design Analysis: Analysis is the most important part of the design phase of the project; along with the visualization. DBS has customized BIM-based softwares in such a way that while doing the design; one can get the required parameters to be analyzed. DBS BIM design analysis will help the designer and owner in decision-making. Most importantly, due to parametric technology and BIM central database; “Analyzed data will be automatically updated if you update the design,” says Viral. This gives an added advantage for faster change management and reduces the overall timeline for the design stage of the project.
BIM for Coordination: In the design development stage of the projects; it is ideal that project design gets collaborated among all the disciplines. BIM helps this complex process perform very effectively. All discipline’s BIM models can be linked to each other while working on the respective designs. Design consultants can adjust or update their BIM models on inputs received from fellow consultants. BIM is equally helpful in coordination between design consultants, project management consultants, and contractors. DBS has developed various coordination techniques to get the required coordinated deliverables at different stages of the project.
BIM for Construction Documents: BIM-based fully coordinated and integrated drawing sets help contractors to visualize and manage their activities in the most efficient way. Due to the parametric nature of the BIM platform, there is no chance of different drawing sheets showing different information for the same building element. DBS has a protocol to issue the construction documents including 3D views to support 2D drawings. This enables contractors in correctly understanding of design, specification, and construction methodology.
BIM for Conflict Resolution: Viral adds, “As we do the multi-disciplinary coordination; we may come across the physical conflict between the project elements.” Leaving behind the traditional system of manually identifying such conflicts via superimposing 2D drawings, BIM offers automatic interference check and clash detection tools. BIM can detect such conflicts as per the user preferences and generate the reports for circulation to consultants.
Based on the conflict resolution decision by the consultant; respective BIM models can be updated for the next round of checking. After a few cycles of conflict detection and its resolution; construction documents become fully coordinated. It helps reducing the construction timelines and increasing the quality of construction as there is almost no conflict to be identified on the project site during executing. DBS has developed various conflict identification techniques to get the required deliverables at different stages of the project.
BIM for Quantity Take-Offs: Quantities of the Building elements and materials can be extracted from the BIM database with no time. Whatever will be modeled will be quantified with respective units and parameters. Detail level and accuracy level of the quantities depend upon the modeling methodology and accuracy of the modeling. All the quantity take-off schedules will be updated accurately and instantly if you update the design model, which is extremely helpful in saving time of recalculation.
DBS has created specific templates according to construction technology and required quantity parameters as per the region; including the Indian construction scenario.
Tech Advanced Value Addition
Being an experienced leader, Viral shares his opinion on how the adoption of modern technologies like AI and ML is impacting the BIM Solution space and how DBS is adapting to the change. “I strongly believe that the power of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning removes bottlenecks in the design process by automating repetitive tasks,” he asserts. In addition to that Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality adds lots of value to technical Visualization.
Informatization and automatization are considered mainstream trends in the future architecture-engineering-construction/facility management (AEC/FM) industry. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an effective technology to digitize building information, whereas artificial intelligence (AI) techniques facilitate automation. DBS is constantly working on how to integrate BIM with AI techniques and apply them in actual design projects, BIM Projects, and Design-Built/Turnkey Projects.
Bridging the Divide
Recalling the challenging scenarios of the last three years, Viral says that in the Pandemic, they faced challenges with the physical presence of employees and hence faced lots of workflow issues. Initially, they also faced issues in the ‘work from home’ model due to Hardware and software license issues. “Finally, we managed to sustain operations with solutions like screen sharing and creating cloud-based BIM models,” he mentions.
In his advice to budding entrepreneurs aspiring to venture into the BIM Solution space, Viral says that BIM Awareness and deciding Working Methodology based on Deliverables would be the key. Using BIM in all stages of the project would give comprehensive benefits, not using it in Parts and parcel. Many firms here in India are using it just for 2D to 3D BIM Conversion. BIM should be the only platform in the AEC industry from Predesign Stage to the O&M stage, eventually up to Demolition.
On envisioning his plans for envisioning scaling DBS’s operations and offerings in the future, Viral reveals that Apart from Architectural and Interior Design Studio, their Academic Wing, DBS ACADEMY, would be helping students to learn BIM from practicing Architects and Construction Managers to bridge the gap between academic content and Professional Deliverables.
