Innsbruck, 11th September 2019 – “When we examine day-to-day processes within the construction and real estate industries and the sector’s level of preparation for the challenges of tomorrow one must clearly conclude that “there is room for improvement!” These were the opening words of Professor Christoph M. Achammer’s keynote opening address to the innovation forum “On Top with BIM” at Innsbruck’s aDLERS Hotel.
In his lecture “Digitalized designing and building. An approach”, Achammer paid particular attention to the heavy environmental responsibility of the construction and real estate industries. “Our sector is responsible for the consumption of almost 40 % of global energy and resources and for the production of 50 % of waste! However, our aim should be to build a good building with minimum waste, a building that is ecologically, economically, and socio-culturally sustainable.” Achammer also follows this objective in practice, both as CEO of ATP architects engineers and as a professor at Vienna University of Technology.
“All other industries are making great efforts to produce their goods while wasting a minimum of resources. Only the construction industry continues to accept levels of waste between 30 and 50 %.” This has to change as quickly as possible and the construction and real estate sectors must fundamentally readdress their production methods, says Achammer: “We have to finally start thinking in terms of processes rather than projects.”
But this demands a comprehensive restructuring stretching from today’s separate training of architects and engineers – and the resulting reluctance to design together, integrally – to the lack of standardization in Building Information Modeling (BIM). Only cultural change within the sector can lead to successful digitalization, reports the early mover of the BIM scene.
“My estimate is that the window of opportunity for the construction and real estate sector will remain open for a maximum of five years”, warns Achammer. “If we don’t use this then we have to expect that our sector, and the way in which it works today, will soon be disrupted by major players from outside.”
Integrated design at ATP architects engineers
With more than 40 years’ experience ATP is one of Europe’s leading integrated design offices. Since 2012 all new buildings at ATP have been jointly modeled with BIM by architects and structural and building services engineers. Thanks to its long-established interdisciplinary design culture ATP is able to exploit all the benefits of digitalization in the interests of the long-term success of a building.
