"The Plan is Dead"

Response to Integrated Practice 1:

In his article, Thom Mayne describes the field of Architecture as pushed forward because of advancing computer technology. He states, “My office doesn’t resemble what it did fifteen years ago… Different staff, different skill sets, different time sequences, different services.” Because of BIM, firms are able to understand spaces, sequences, arrangements, program grouping all from within one digital format. We aren’t describing what we want to build through drawings; we are actually building and inhabiting it before the building is physically realized.

His most provocative statement has to deal with 2-D drawings. “I haven’t drawn a plan for five years. I go to schools now that are still drawing plans and sections and I have no idea what to talk about.” He isn’t saying that the plan is dead or that the section is dead. He is stating that all 2-D drawings are dead. Three-dimensional modeling breaks the designer out of the 2-D constraints and opens up a realm of possibility. With BIM, you can realize and create spaces that were never possible with two dimensional drawings because of the limitations. You are now designing, creating and making in 3-D and simply describing your model with 2-D drawings. Simply put, BIM and three dimensional modeling “represents a new totality”.

I don’t know if two dimensional drawing is dead. We can learn a lot about design by inspecting the plan, section and elevation. Sometimes it can simplify how we understand a particularly complex arrangement of spaces or how some spaces seemingly flow through a building. I find the most helpful representation is a hybrid of two and three dimensions. Section perspectives, axonometric plans, or a hybrid of both can include all the information you need in one simple drawing or model. What makes BIM so special when dealing with representation is that BIM provides this with ease. In some sense, as soon as you start cutting into the building, you are creating two dimensional drawings even if you are working in a three dimensional model.  The plans, sections, and elevations are still there, but they are just represented in conjunction with other things.