In the summer of 2017, I worked at the Burohappold Los Angeles office. I was tasked with “assessing the future feasibility of integrated, multi-discipline engineering to happen in one digital space”, a brief given to me by the principle in the LA office. This work is still covered by an NDA. I needed to learn a great deal about the building engineering industry in a very short period of time.

In order to achieve this, I evaluated the company’s internal design and information exchange workflows in the context of new Building Information Management frameworks, interviewed engineers from across teams, investigated 3rd party solutions that were on the market, and explored the newly developed internal software object model. The ultimate goal was, as put well by a colleague of mine, “to treat computers like graduates, so that the actual graduates get to do interesting stuff”.

Following this, I got to work on writing the report. I identified five key themes across my research that contributed to the ‘one digital environment’:

• Automation of tasks

• Integrated design

• Coordinated design

• Resource Management

• Management and Training

I suggested workflow modifications and developed some basic tools using my limited experience with the automation tools available in architectural software like Revit and Autocad. Subsequently, I presented the final 70-page report to management on Skype meetings and was also invited to participle at the annual company conference in Boston. The table of contents of the report is available for download here.