During his keynote address at the 2006 CSI (Construction Specifications Institute) Convention, Frank Gehry, architect of such prominent structures as the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, concluded that the ability of Building Information Modeling (BIM)—a “virtual building” database―to tie a wealth of information together at once is creating a “Culture of Collaboration” among architects, specifiers, engineers, contractors, and others in the construction industry.

This revolutionary approach has continued to develop and was again a focus at The 2007 CSI Show & Convention, held in Baltimore, Maryland June 20-22nd. CSI, the national association responsible for creating standards and formats to improve construction documents, packed this year's Education Schedule with 30+ hours of learning seminars. This included BIM-related class sessions that qualified participants for a variety of credits including CSI Continuing Education Units (CEUs), AIA Learning Units (LUs) and Health, Safety, Welfare (HSW) credits. A significant BIM-focused learning event featured at the convention was the MasterFormat Accredited "Specifications in BIM: CSI / SCIP Workshop", which involved a panel of experts (including electronic collaboration tool and graphic software providers, specifiers, and BIM experts) discussing the direction of Specifications in the Building Information Model.

To become familiar with BIM as it pertains to AEC professionals and CSI members alike, the design-build community must first understand the basic concepts behind the approach. Click here to learn more about BIM technology, software tools, and available resources.

THE CSI SHOW
Featured product manufacturers from the 2007 CSI Show.