How Landscape Architecture Is Growing BIM Roots for Better Collaboration
Date Posted: June 14, 2019
Posted In: Discussion,
From Autodesk Redshift: Lauren Schmidt, a landscape architect and associate at Seattle-based firm GGN, has become an expert at using BIM (Building Information Modeling) in landscape architecture. BIM isn’t traditionally used for landscape architecture, but Schmidt realized a key component of BIM that is beneficial to landscape architects: 3D modeling data.
Having integrated the technology into her own projects and practice, Schmidt became frustrated by a lack of available information on using BIM in landscape architecture. The solution? She created an online video training course—“Revit Landscape: An Introduction to Revit and Site Modeling”—and she blogs on the topic at landarchBIM.
Schmidt also writes columns for the professional blog World Landscape Architecture (WLA) and hosts presentations at the Revit Technology Conference Europe. She’s been creating a wealth of 3D modeling resources tailored to an industry that has not been as quick to adopt BIM as the architecture, engineering, and construction industry has.
“As a landscape architect, I am sometimes asked by architects, ‘Why do you use [Autodesk] Revit?’,” Schmidt says. “And the answer is quite simple: for all of the same reasons that architects and building engineers do. This may seem obvious to anyone familiar with the program and its capabilities, but to the uninitiated, this explanation is not sufficient.”
Schmidt’s expertise in BIM for landscape architecture stands out partly because there just aren’t many experts. “I think landscape architecture is a smaller profession, wedged in between architecture and civil engineering, and maybe a little underserved by the current tools available,” she says. “Put another way, we’re not a big market share.”
Put yet another way, landscape architects are in the same position surveyors and civil engineers were years ago: Their clients—architects and developers—were adopting BIM and modeling in a big way, so they had to adapt. (Schmidt cites a recent project collaborating with LMN Architects to design the newly expanded Washington State Convention Center in Seattle as a great example of BIM collaboration.)