Recently I was introduced to a new piece of software by one of the contractors I’m working with. It aggregates 2D and 3D information using the coordinates of the 2D view to overlay drawings in 3D model space. It’s very clever and no doubt going to be very useful, as well as a bit of a faff as all the consultants and subcontractors begin to grapple with it.

These same contractors are fully embracing a “model-first” approach and have sequenced the consultant’s BIM models to create what, to many people, would be the world’s oddest short film, but to me is fascinating. To see the models I have worked in for the last three or so years used to test construction logistics opens up a utility I didn’t know these files had. Perhaps I’m too easily impressed.

It has made me consider the speed with which evolving drawing technology has changed the way an architect works. When I was at university in the late ‘00s, CAD was in standard use in practice but we were taught to draw with ink pens and tracing paper for the first year of our studies, a discipline I never excelled at but which did add a richness to my drawings that even my most beautiful CAD or BIM drawings lack.

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