Supplies Lead Wendy Bonard-Williams comments that her team are fortunate in this regard.
A digitised planning process will not replace humans with computers.Creating standardised data or the means of standardising existing data across the planning process will enable us to automate those elements which are machine-readable (eg to assess whether standard information supplied by the architect/designer is complete and compliant), and then transparent decision-making by planners.
(And by extension – this can encompass building control, health and safety and other types of compliance checking.).This degree of automation will not remove the requirement for human judgement and discretion in planning decisions.The purpose of digitisation is to facilitate the process by reducing the burden on those people of large amounts of admin and tedious, repetitive tasks that can be done better by machines than humans.. Benefits for architects:.
A digitised planning process will involve a change in the way architects are required to produce some information on their designs, and it will enforce a rigour and consistency in the technical elements of designs (which does not imply or require any constraint on creativity).This is not a huge departure, however: rigour in approach is good practice, and the information required is already largely included in BIM models..
The most significant change for architects will be to free up large chunks of their time to devote to the creative part of their work, which is where they can add the most value (and which is why they became architects in the first place)..
Better information for planning officers:.The more buildings that can be described by technical standards, state-based standards and rule sets ripe for some form of algorithmic design, the more we will be able to design more efficiently, more quickly and to a higher quality.
This digital process will then feed all the way down through manufacturing, assembly automation and construction, with the ultimate benefits finding their way onto site..Lean construction in practice: a virtuous circle of benefits.
All of these factors combine to deliver cost and material savings, while using fewer people and increasing productivity.We’re already seeing evidence that it’s possible to build a superstructure with half the number of people in half the time, representing a four-fold increase in productivity, as well as a 25% reduction in overall material and a 20% reduction in embodied carbon.