GLUMAC - Engineers for a sustainable future

Rem Wilson, LEED^®AP, Portland Associate Principal

In our February issue, we discussed our training sessions on the 3D Building Information Modeling (BIM) software, Revit^®, by AutoDesk. Since then, Glumac has been adopting Revit^® in all of our offices. Our Portland office has been spearheading collaborative learning efforts to improve the software€™s utilization within our offices, as well as with clients and partnering firms.

Glumac actively sponsors in-house forums to discuss Revit^®, inviting firms of multiple disciplines, such as architectural and structural, to share their input and experiences. Harley Cowan of YGH Architecture expresses the benefit of such collaboration, commenting, "Building Information Modeling is as profound and challenging a change to the building industry as the switch from hand-drafting to CAD. Portland is unusual in that even competing firms band together to solve problems that affect our industry as a whole. Glumac is leading the effort to bring architects and engineers together, and I appreciate being a part of the dialog."

Recently, Glumac received the Revit^® Release 3, and is currently evaluating the add-ons delivered by this software upgrade. Upon review of Release 3, Glumac will further communicate back to AutoDesk on impressions and feedback, providing AutoDesk with input they will be able to consider in planning and creating future upgrades.

Glumac is extremely excited to be collaborating with GBD Architects and kpff Consulting Engineers on a new project that will involve the coordinated use of Revit^® by all engineering disciplines. The Portland Professional Office Plaza is a six-story, 250,000 sf, raised floor ventilation project. All involved firms will be using Revit^® for 3D BIM on this start-to-finish project, beginning with design and concluding with construction documents.

In addition to the design work with Revit^® being conducted in Portland, our San Francisco location has begun using Revit^® as an aid for energy modeling.

Glumac intends to continue hosting and supporting 3D Modeling forums as our use of Revit^® increases. We are dedicated to collaborating with other engineering and architectural firms in our various regional locations to further synthesize our common adoption of Revit^®. In doing so, we strive to continue bringing cohesion to our growing design and engineering efforts, both within our company and within our design community.