Just another BIM conference?

by Martin Taurer
BILT Europe 2019 in Edinburgh – oh just another BIM conference one might say, given the inflation of such events over the past years. But is it really? With the eye of an architect, there are so many classes to take advantage of and if you don’t get the chance to attend all the classes you want, all the materials for every class is made available for all attendees during and post-conference, so that you have hand-outs, presentations & tips and tricks documents to refer back to, so that you can solidify the learning experience surrounding the topics presented.
Without further ado, let’s look at the programme with my top choices:
First day after the main stage plenary kicks off, the choice of first classes to attend is not an easy one:
Session 1.2
- Computer Vision, Machine Learning, and more cool words… For AEC! By Kelly Cone and Adam Sheather sounds enticing,
- A Space for Progress: Transforming your Studio to Meet Industry Realities by Steve Nonis and Ellen Bensky
- Lab: Making Unreal Real Easy by Dan Chasteen.
I really want to get my head around the Unreal engine now for year, but the others are equally as fascinating to me, a tough choice.
From here on it gets even better – or worse in terms of letting go of classes simply because there is so much cool stuff happening:
Session 1.3
- Quoc Pham on The Power of Business Intelligence – PowerBI
- Lab: pure_Revit_Python!! by Frederic Beaupere.
Another tough one. And it definitly does not stop there, the follow up classes for the day that jump to my eye are:
Session 1.4
- From Project Information Model to Asset Information Model by Wee Jong
- Pedro Santiago with his Lab: Sustainable Building Design through BIM and parametric methodologies
Session 1.5
- Museum of the Future: Generative design of a structural diagrid by Martin Hendriksen
- Ivan Pajares talking about Interoperability at large: making foreign model data available in Revit.
I am already beautifully exhausted so the Night at Gosford House will come in handy to relax, connect and wind down.
And relaxed I should be since day two is literally stuffed with so many goodies, I will just mention the biggest highlights for me:
- Session 2.2 – Arno de Lange on Microsoft Flow, let programs communicate with each other
- Session 2.3 & 2.4 Double Lab – How to Train Your Model with Project Refinery with Matt Jezyk,
- Session 2.4 – Jerusalem LRT Depot- The Structural Giant featuring Aaron Levy,
- Session 2.5 – Ricardo Pagani on Forge platform to use BIM for Facility Management.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Then the challenge starts, after a long two days of stuffing my brain full of useful information, and speaking with some of the industries finest, there is another day full of things to grab, information to take home, and inspiration for my own workflows.
So Saturday will see the light of the day and off we have some really interesting stuff:
- Session 3.1 – Timon Hazell leading a Lab Class: Custom Dynamo Script Usage Tracking Nodes and Visualizing in Power BI. For me this is one super important class.
- Session 3.3 – Damien Lefranc speaking about H76 Headquarter: IoT and BIM Dynamic.
- Session 3.4 – And last but not least there is Kevin Fielding on Open vs Closed BIM – Is IFC really the future?
Duh – by now I will be really exhausted in a positive way. This three-day marathon will for sure not be just another BIM Conference. Au contraire – it is a unique meetup full of information, networking, innovation and inspiration. Not to forget the finely crafted events that surround all of this such as the Ceilidh Gala Dinner. Really something I am looking forward to!
Want to see more classes? Check out the full schedule here!
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