Building your small family home is a journey filled with excitement, anticipation, and countless decisions. Among these decisions, perhaps one of the most crucial is how you'll create the blueprint for your home. Traditionally, architects and builders have relied on simple 2D processes to draft these plans. However, with advancements in technology, there's a better way: Building Information Modeling (BIM). In this article, I'll explore what are the most common issues found in 2D drawings and how drawings extracted from BIM offer significant advantages over traditional 2D methods for small family home construction.

Issue cause:

Coordination in 2D is very difficult and involves overlaying other drawings, which is very ineffective.

If the BIM process were used:

If multiple discipline models are created, they can be combined into one and checked for misalignments, for example, using clash detection process. You can read more about this in my post "How Clash Review Saved Thousands for My Family House".

Issue cause:

When changes are made in 2D drawings, they are not automatically represented in any associated view. This means that it is very easy to forget to adjust the related drawings. This is true for both the represented objects and information attached to them.

If the BIM process were used:

If all single discipline drawings are extracted from models, it is not possible to have misalignments between them because they are made from a single model and are updated anytime changes are made.

Issue cause:

It is difficult to imagine all the construction principles while designing in 2D. In real life, everything is 3D, and the only way is to imagine how things should look. That is why many things are shown schematically and left for the contractor to interpret and build, causing many errors, for example, when some object does not have enough space.

If the BIM process were used:

3D models are usually created much more similarly to how the objects will be built in real life, meaning that if it is modeled, usually, it could be built that way. It does not mean it is always the best solution, but at least you can be sure that there is at least one option.

Issue cause:

2D drawings allow only a limited amount of views to communicate the design with the client. This means that many things are left for imagination or missed.

If the BIM process were used:

BIM allows viewing the building and the objects inside from any angle using 3D views or by creating as many sections and plan views as you like. This allows for a far better understanding of how things could look like in real life.

Issue cause:

Drawings often lack important information for the contractor, e.g., identification, dimensions. It could be that this was forgotten, or it could be laziness because adding such information might be time-consuming.

If the BIM process were used:

It is possible to automate information placement on drawings - dimensions, tags, etc. This can help to avoid missing information. Also, if information is missing, it could be extracted from models directly. Because they are usually made in scale 1:1, they can be directly measured, and information can sometimes be read from the object attributes.

Issue cause:

Creating quantity take-offs in the 2D process involves manual counting, which is prone to many errors, like double counting or forgetting to count something.

If the BIM process were used:

If quantities are extracted from BIM, they are much more precise, and there are fewer possibilities of unexpected price increases during construction.

Issue cause:

To change something in drawings in later stages of the design can be very time-consuming. It is a manual task and usually causes many errors because of misalignments.

If the BIM process were used:

Making changes in models is much faster. And if the design team is well-prepared, then extracting drawings from models is an easy and quick process.

Issue cause:

This could be because of print quality or drawings being too cluttered with information. But it could also be that some information like dimensions is overridden.

If the BIM process were used:

Building information models are usually created in scale 1:1, and it is not common to override any dimensions because it would cause the model and drawings to look wrong.

In conclusion, while traditional 2D processes have been the norm for many years, BIM offers a more advanced and effective approach to home design and construction. By harnessing the power of 3D modeling, enhanced collaboration, and data-driven decision-making, information and drawings extracted from BIM provide numerous benefits that can help you build your family home more efficiently, accurately, and sustainably.

If you're embarking on the journey of building your dream home, consider embracing the possibilities of BIM. With its ability to turn your vision into reality with precision and efficiency, BIM may just be the key to unlocking the home of your dreams.