- THE PROCESS
We had to clear all the junk in the wake of going digitally BIM, which brought about timely hardware upgrades. This activity, which had to be, both by strategy and necessity, served as a trip down the TRIAD memory lane, with a loud sigh of gratitude to the advancement in technology, to today’s Architect. - THE MEMORIES
Out of the disposable junk were treasures like TRIAD’s laptop of choice in the 80’s, a Toshiba T3100SX that first made its debut with pomp and pride in 1987. Most readers of this article will not have a memory image of this piece of equipment, so I’ll take the liberty to describe it.A Toshiba T3100SX, with its screen closed, looks like a briefcase, in hard plastic, with a handle, a line of flap-top vents that look like well-constructed vent grilles, and weighs 7.5kg. Its operating system is MS-DOS 4.0, has a 40MB hard drive, a 720kb internal 3.5”floppy drive and a 360kb connector for external 5.25”floppy drive. When switched on, the screen has an orange hue. Classic!I am not of this generation, but the joy by which those that are, relay the memories, I can tell its presence at the time, put TRIAD in the ‘A’ list.The first AutoCad software version to be used in TRIAD was AutoCad R14, in 198–. This again, at the time, put TRIAD among the region’s first to use Computer Aided Design. - HELLO TODAY!
Fast-forward to 2015, it’s been a year of change, good change, and still at the forefront of embracing technological advancements in the region. We strategically, replaced some of our previous ‘ways of working’ with Building Information Modelling, on Autodesk Design Suite, upgraded our communication systems, and ‘went paperless’.The decision to choose BIM was timely, as it enables TRIAD to extend beyond 3D, augmenting the three primary spatial dimensions (width, height and depth) with time as the fourth dimension (4D) and cost as the fifth (5D). BIM to us therefore, covers more than just geometry. It also covers spatial relationships, light analysis, geographic information, quantities and properties of building components.Our motto, to be at the forefront of Architecture in the region, goes hand in hand with comprehensive BIM implementation in all our works, and relentless upgrading of our systems and structures to embrace new technology.