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Writer's pictureBill Allen

BiLT 2018: The Human Experience in the Time of Automation


Shared understanding is particularly critical if we are to shape a collective future that reflects common objectives and values.” ― Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution.

I recently had the honor to attend my first BiLT North America Conference in Saint Louis, Missouri as a co-presenter. I was able to share my perspective from a content creator point-of-view on the “Status of Third Party Lighting Fixture Families” session along with Matt Kincaid from Lighting Analysts. Our current assessment of the status of third party lighting fixture families is more cohesive as content creators adopt new standards and platforms that promote consistency. It was particularly refreshing to see firsthand the collective engagement as a diverse community of professionals and the dedication to learn from one another.

The Building Content Summit keynote by Tomislav Zigo on the first day addressed the challenges and potentials of the current speed of innovation and the paradigm shift of the fourth industrial revolution. How does this disruption affect the AEC industry? The key to creating alignment with technology and ourselves is to attempt to connect the dots. The need for the AEC industry to align more closely with the manufacturing industry illustrates the connection that is happening with the current speed of innovation.

It is also critical to integrate these new technological tools to educate our workforce and elevate the new generation of AEC professionals. The BIM Challenge: A Gamified Framework for Learning session by Chiara C. Rizzarda and Claudio Vittori Antisari presented us with a way to identify the current problems with traditional training methods and proposed better learning pathways. These new techniques focus on a more personalized solution that combines gamification to encourage engagement and success at completion. Machine learning algorithms can be a great tool to achieve this personalized and gamified learning method. A learning management system that uses machine learning can access data and use it to improve the learning experience. It also enables us to provide automated personalized training paths for each specific learner.

The core belief at BilT, that technology is an enabler of better processes and outcomes, was fully embodied at Sean Fruin’s session “Building Smart MEP Systems with Dynamo”. He emphasized the mindset of working smarter by leveraging the power of Dynamo algorithms to get more out of Revit and create better adaptable models in less time. This workflow provides clear opportunities for improvement, not only in productivity, but in innovation as well. The more we learn how to have these algorithms do the heavy lifting for us, the more time we can spend on innovating.

The overall sense of the conference provided a variety of opportunities to learn and share from the best in the industry. The neural network of shared ideas provided a natural evolution of the BilT community to aid in the quest for a smarter and more sustainable future. The closing keynote: “Technology is no Replacement for the Human Experience” by sculptor Sabin Howard gave us a comprehensive perspective on how to embrace technology to continue the pursuit to augment ourselves. Our current challenge is to balance out the role of automation to the human experience by focusing on building each other up through personalized education. This is critical since technology is evolving faster than we are.

Daniel Cortes is a Design Technologist at EvolveLAB, here to help with your 3D modeling and coordination as well as client training and support. Before joining EvolveLab, Daniel worked as a Lighting and Electrical Designer in Los Angeles collaborating on large commercial projects around the US and the globe. He recently worked for Lighting Analysts as a Software Technologist and helped to develop eLearning modules, provide customer support, and enhance the development of various lighting tools.

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