What is the problem with designing in Hungary?

Same as with the typewriter.

But the typewriter is good. You can write beautiful novels with it and great writers have used typewriters.

Of course. However, our world has changed, with it the typewriter, which has now become a decorative or soothing sound that can evoke pleasant memories.

But how has it changed?

There is a new generation of tools that make it easier to write, but especially to edit and correct errors. Tools that get the boring work done, speed up the flow of information, and remove the importance of space.

OK, but what do planning and Hungary have to do with it?

Because we were on the verge of a similar paradigm shift before the arrival of the crown virus, which has now successfully pushed us through it and we see that the old ways no longer work.

By coincidence, we had already crossed this threshold two years earlier, and as a result, I can now share my experience of what it was like to plan before and after the paradigm shift.

What it’s like to work in the fourth generation of design.

Because I think there have been 4 generations of the evolution of design. We’re now moving from the third to the fourth, and while each has had a big impact on our lives, it’s the latter that is reshaping the way our entire industry works from the ground up.

Design 1.0

Design 1.0 was freehand drawing.

We loved it, it was beautiful. Intuitive, but at the same time very hard work.

Design 2.0

Design 2.0 was CAD.

It was ugly and cumbersome. But it had undo, you didn’t have to fiddle around, you could change, copy, enlarge, in short, it saved a lot of work.

Design 3.0

Design 3.0 was the era of 3D design.

We modeled the house with all kinds of software. We made super section planes, floor plans, and visual plans. We exported, imported, and tried to include models of disciplines. We did clash detections, sent emails, fixed errors And when it reached a certain size or complexity, we were tired, late, and explaining.

Design 4.0

Design 4.0 is the age of the information model.
Where we build an installation together in virtual space, we attach information to the elements, turn it into shared knowledge over the lifetime of the construction, and in one fell swoop, everything becomes grossly efficient.

We had the opportunity to design two equally complex houses in succession in two different systems, so we could experience the different dimensions firsthand. Allow me to share my experience with this.

We started our first BIM project with a traditional workflow. In fact, we knew as much about BIM as 90% of design offices today. We thought we had a well-detailed 3D and that’s all. We got expert help and started to build a model of a building.

It was one of the most complex technological buildings in Central and Eastern Europe. Imagine an office building with about 40-50 different technologies installed on 7000 m2, so there are about 400 kilometers of piping in the suspended ceiling space, connecting 3-400 different systems.

The structural analysis was designed in Tekla, the architecture in ArchiCAD, the electrical in AutoCAD 2-3D, the ventilation in Cadvent, the mechanical engineering in 2D, and then the model in Revit, so it was all there. We didn’t even need 3 months and we had 4 sectoral plans that were similar to each other, oh, yes. Now, let’s do an IFC export and let’s start the clash detection.

We were curious.

We were able to run the first collision search in the third target software, as the IFC outputs were not really compatible with each other and the first 2 clash detection software were down on their knees due to the size of the model. The coordination of parameters was impossible due to the different CAD systems. As well as the insertion point, the coordinates, and a few other things we struggled with.

But it worked. We run the clash detection.

In the first round, we found 10 200 000 collisions. This was brought down to below 100 000 critical hits in a week’s work. After that, about 30 engineers worked for another 4 weeks to fix these collisions.

It was, frankly, hopeless.

The way to think of it is that when we told the electrical designer to move a cable duct 40 cm to the left because it collided with 2 anemostats, the static moved a wall and the engineer moved a fan coil. The result:

2 errors have been removed and 3 new collisions have been created.

The saddest part was that when the design was finally done and the contractor was chosen, some systems, materials, and quantities were changed to reduce costs, which meant that the whole process had to start all over again. By then, however, there was not enough time, and the changes were handled with great haste and with the help of designers during the construction. We were able to deliver the last amendment after 7 months and all the while we were working hard, defending, attacking, and compromising.

This project has taught us enough lessons to make us never want to design a house this way again.

We were waiting for the next project.

The next house we designed under the new system was a very similar complex building.

We were ready, we’ve upgraded to the latest available equipment in almost every area. We started to use a new designing environment, implemented a completely different communication platform, developed a tag-managed document management system, and switched to cloud-based visual project management software and hypermodern ERP.

It wasn’t just our systems that needed replacing. We had to replace our co-designers and lost some of our own colleagues. But excellent new colleagues came in and everyone fought tooth and nail to deliver the biggest project of our lives in an unfamiliar software environment, on a tight deadline, to a high quality.

In the new system, around 40 designers have built ONE central model at ONE time in virtual space. If someone pulled in a cable tray, no one else would put an anemostat in it because they saw that it wouldn’t fit.

In just two months. And it was done.

The first clash detection went off without a problem, we found 200 collisions, which were removed from the model within a day.

The visual designs and animations were created in real time. The plan sheets were automatically generated from the model, we just added a frame, a scale line, and labels.

The conventions showed the current state of the model. If the size of a door was changed on the consent form, the entire plan was updated within a second, and the revised modification was sent to the construction site with the push of a button.

Because we’ve got a communication platform built on a gamer engine, which uploads both the plans and the building model from the difficult and complex design environment to the cloud with a single synchronization. The information becomes shared knowledge, and the client or contractor can use a standard phone, tablet, or laptop to “walk through” the plans and even have them modified: if they want to move a door, they just put a post-it on the model, pin a photo to it, the label who they want to change it, and when they save it, the designer gets a link to the modification within a minute.

With one click, the designer opens the model or drawing in the same view and can immediately make the requested changes, which, after a synchronization, updates the entire design documentation and is delivered to the construction site, directly to the client.

Brutal change.

And the story doesn’t end there.

Whereas in Design 3.0 the designer’s job was finished when the paper plans were handed in (“he pulled the carcass over the fence”), in Design 4.0 we create a digital copy of the building. This digital twin stores all the history and characteristic information makes construction simple, facilitates operation, in short, gives you a continuous task throughout the life of the building.

The new generation of design firms is not just designers after all.

Tech company, knowledge-sharing provider, data analyst, software engineer, quality controller, and more.

And the result?

5x faster design, radical reduction in design errors, less extra work, and fewer delays. More efficient design, easier operation. In short, cost savings of around 20-40% over the entire lifetime.

Is there a downside?

Of course. Building a digital twin requires a lot of expertise and a lot of work, so a fraction of the savings should be spent at the beginning. But more on this in a future post.