I keep promising myself to write short, punch posts so that I can publish twice a week. Not happening. Seems like I have been working on this one forever. It takes the form of a retrospective. One year in. Project Notre Dame. An accident of history, voluntary collaboration, BIM pencil initiative, journey of discovery.
Just over a year ago I was recovering from an operation. The problem had cropped up while visiting the UK and I had the operation there, while staying with my son. One weekend we had visited Winchester Cathedral, a concession to my obsessive interest in Old buildings.
Recuperating back in Dubai I had the idea of making a rapid BIM model of the cathedral. I allocated a single day to the task and my goal was to probe my understanding. Sketching and modelling are ideal complements to live visits, backed up by research and image gathering.
The process of constructing a diagram with your own hands, forces you into a different mode of attention. You are…