Information Modeling, from ASLA’s The Field

Apparently, last month’s LAM article has inspired further discussion from ASLA regarding BIM in landscape architecture.

The Field (ASLA’s PPN blog) posted an article, Information Modeling… “Are we there yet?”,” written by Matthew Wilkins, co-chair of the Digital Technology PPN. For those who do not know, the Digital Technology PPN (Professional Practice Network) is one of twenty ASLA networks that aim to ‘help support your practice and provide a forum to make connections outside your market.’ The Digital Technology PPN is concerned with the role of computing in landscape architecture.

It is not surprising to see this article, since the other co-chair of the Digital Technology PPN, Ryan Deane, was the contributing editor for the LAM article, “The Limits of BIM.” Regardless, it is encouraging to see ASLA more openly and more widely discuss BIM as it pertains to landscape architecture.

As a whole, I found the article well-written, and its concluding call to action is highly appropriate.

As a profession we should be adaptive and receptive to the information-modeling wave, as it will help our industry design for the health, safety, and welfare of our built and natural environments.

However, I have recently started to notice that many landscape architects do not seem to fully understand the limitations of using Revit. This is understandable since very few landscape architects use Revit, but if we want to make suggestions for improving the software, we must first understand it…