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AEC

Building with Words (AEC Insight Column)

February 1, 2008 By: Jerry Laiserin

How technology informates AEC specifications.


Even before CAD, computer technology — especially word-processing software and printing and communication hardware — helped automate the production, editing, and distribution of specifications. Today's technology potentially can go beyond merely automating spec writing to informating the process. You may ask, "What is informating? Is that a real word?" Informating is a neologism by social scientist Shoshana Zuboff, professor at the Harvard Business School and author of the 1988 classic titled In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power.

According to Wikipedia, "informating is the process that translates descriptions and measurements of activities, events, and objects into information." Thus, spec writing involves descriptions and measurements of activities, events, and objects — the materials, means, and methods of construction — and computer-aided or computer-enhanced spec writing informates the process and translates specifications into information that is usable and actionable by both humans and machines.

Tech for Specs

I see a diverse hierarchy of specifications technology, including software tools that

  • 1. automate the previously manual process of spec writing,
  • 2. generate specifications from plans and/or building information models,
  • 3. integrate the specifications view or representation of a building project with the model, and
  • 4. create and/or provide building information modeling (BIM)–ready models of building components with specification data embedded in the component model.

Beyond these core architecture- and engineering-centric specification technology applications, additional tools are emerging to move design specification information into the contractor's realm.

All spec technologies entail varying degrees of integration (of specifications with models), which is one of the modes of BIM automation I outlined in my November 2007 "AEC Insight" column. BIM model-authoring tools — such as ArchiCAD, Bentley Architecture, Gehry Digitalproject, Revit Architecture, and VectorWorks Architect — contain data about the material composition of walls, slabs, and so on plus specific objects and components (such as doors and windows). Every instance of every material or component can be reported out of the BIM model, effectively yielding an outline specification or a list of materials to be specified. In theory, the resulting outline specs can then be used to generate the actual specification language.

From Theory to Practice

At least that's the theory. "Data transfer in general is one of the most intriguing aspects in BIM," according to Barbara Heller, FAIA, president of Heller and Metzger, a specifications consulting firm, and CEO of Design+Construction Strategies, a technology consulting firm, both headquartered in Washington, D.C. "The process is broken in the 2D world. The process of procuring products — by type, quality, grade, warranty, and so forth — is not controlled by any one entity for any given project. Not by the architect, specifier, estimator, subcontractors, fabricators — no one. Thus, the point in the process at which the most money changes hands is the most broken. BIM makes these flaws more visible."

Early examples of spec technology simply replaced typewriters with computers. Many firms still rely on self-developed master specifications and/or building-type submasters from which they edit project specs. After Microsoft Word, the next most popular commercial software for this approach is MasterSpec. An alternative to the subtractive approach is one in which specs are built from a database of relevant sections. This latter method is exemplified by products from BSD Softlink, especially the PerSpective program (figure 1), geared to developing performance specifications for design–build projects.

Figure 1. BSD SpecLink+ PerSpective is ideally suited to creating performance specifications during planning and early design phases, particularly for design–build projects. (Image courtesy BSD SoftLink)
Figure 1. BSD SpecLink+ PerSpective is ideally suited to creating performance specifications during planning and early design phases, particularly for design–build projects. (Image courtesy BSD SoftLink)

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