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v5: I think so too. We had a conversation with Frank Gehry about this in
regards to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. He was very happy to generate the shop drawings for the steel and move them directly into the fabricator's hands. It allowed him to do a type of building where,
literally, a few months before in Los Angeles they had told him it
couldn't be done. Because he was able to quantify complex forms, and
knew how much steel was involved, a whole host of things, he was able to get a project built - Bilbao.
David - What we're really talking about is empowering architects with
the knowledge of what they're building. And we're willing to share that
knowledge with every other person in the team. Architects might spend
more time designing the building, but the time that this saves from the
management will be put into other people's hands. Like maybe the
contractor will have more time to complete the building, etc. If this
idea is successful in its implementation and use, we will really have
different rules. I think it will be in some ways a more efficient, and
in many ways a much better, building that gets built.
v5: Well, given the best case scenarios, there's certainly the opportunity
to put up better buildings. Bilbao is a good example of a better
building going up. Right now it's very difficult for architects to shop,
but this would make that possible. The architect now can't make
comparisons between different configurations in the design phase,
whereas the contractor always has that opportunity to shop and bring
that expertise into the value of the project. They take a sizeable cut
for that, but they have that opportunity.
David - But even contractors only have the ability to shop to a very
limited extent. They don't have the ability to shop like you would for a
retail product. There is not that type of competition in the building
supply industry. They can trade off systems of construction, and they
may be able to find the best deal on a particular kind of truss, but
really it's only a regional shopping at the most. And so if you know
what kind of product you're going to have six months before you use it,
you'll have six months to shop, however big the region is that you can
get it from.
v5: But you could change out those products during the design process as well. You could decide that you're not going to use the Anderson window, you're going to use Peachtree or whatever. You have that opportunity in a virtual model; also, the Internet makes it a lot easier.
David - Oh, absolutely. Right now, it takes three weeks to get a
catalogue, and you don't get prices with them! I'm sure there's lots of
territorialization between the distributors, contractors, manufacturers,
and architects. What we're talking about is these products becoming like
retail products, in a sense. Then the contractor who actually buys -
they don't do the shopping, they just get the best price for it.
Right now, there's a kind of conservatism and architects tend to default
to whatever they're very familiar with, like American Standard or
Kohler. But there's many other product manufacturers out there, and when you look at the specs sometimes their products are much better. I think the communication of the Internet will allow for a better and more equal evaluation of products.
Adam - It levels the playing field in some sense. On the Internet, a
"mom and pop" operation can really be there and compete for jobs that
normally only the top 20% of product manufacturers could afford to be a
part of. And they might be right down the street from your project.
We were talking about the Internet having the capability to put the
architect in the driver's seat in terms of the whole building process.
If this really does take off and run to its full potential, maybe the
owner would go to the architect for cost estimating services as well, or
at least the architect would have access to that kind of information.
This makes the architect much more well-informed, and gives him or her
the opportunity to engage a building process from so many more different
angles than is now possible.
v5: How does this move into the construction site? How do you bridge the
virtual model with the real construction?
Adam - The information can be brought directly to the construction site,
electronically. There are these tiny little wireless pocket computers
called Palm Pilots that are made by U.S. Robotics. With one of these in
hand, the contractor can be walking around the site viewing the latest
changes, and if he has a question he can immediately address it, talking
to the architect virtually on site. Even with a camera. The hardware
will address these problems. Panasonic even has a laptop called the
Toughbook, which is designed with really big keys for big fingers, and
you can spill coffee on it and get it dusty and it still works. It's
great to see the technology bending for the actual user. I envision
these contractors walking around with these Palm Pilots, or something
like that, and if there's a connection problem or a finish problem,
being able to address it almost instantly on the site.
David - It's not going to change the way nails get hammered in. But it
is going to change the way the project gets managed, and it is going to
change the way it gets purchased. It's not going to change the way it
gets constructed. Except in ways that we don't know about - maybe the
manufacturers will have influence in that area.
Although perhaps in the case of Gehry's work, it actually has allowed
for a different kind of project. It allowed for shapes that are much
more complicated, and it allowed him to achieve things numerically that
were very difficult to account for before. But at the same time, the
building is still a steel frame building with a skin on it; in many ways
it's a known event.
Marty - I love how when people talk about technology now they're talking
about Gehry!
Adam - His hot gluing and scotch taping still take precedence over the
high levels of technology in his office. The digitizer and the Catia
follow from the actual paper, wood, and Bondo models.
Marty - And he really has no idea how to turn on the computer? That's
another thing that's good about the process. He may be a great designer,
but the buildings couldn't happen without all these people who are
making it happen.
David - I've heard of these French couturiers who couldn't sew on a
button and yet they create huge lines of clothing every year. It's
really that kind of use of technology that we're interested in - getting
more time for that.
v5: Well, that sounds like a good note to end on. Thanks for speaking with
us.
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