I received a Google Alert for the keyword BIM this AM that lead to a press release about a construction firm in Neenah, WI (a town just down the road from me). It was hard to figure who the release was aimed at, as it was a boilerplate ‘we use BIM, and are damn excited about it!” type of release, but with a bit of digging it became more interesting.

I clicked on the link to the construction firm in question, Miron Construction, which has a better than average corporate page in that it had quite a few links to articles. Hiding between some greenwashing, was a link to an article by Peter Lawrence titled “Changing the Color Paradigm: Expanding the role of color in construction documentation”. My attention was piqued. The subject is near and dear to me because I have experience on both sides of construction drawings.

In the article, Peter gives an example of a workshop he performs. He gives a group a couple D-size drawings, one monochrome, and the other color. Starting with the monochrome drawing, he asks them to count the number of sinks in the drawing, and the group responds with 7, 8, or 9 sinks. He then asks them to count the sinks on the color drawing, where they all get the correct answer, 10. He doesn’t mention this, but I’ll bet it took less than half the time to get the rightanswer with the color drawing. In my experience, even the best people we had at one company made numerous mistakes on our black and white drawings. It is no wonder why, they looked like black spaghetti served up on king-sized toilet paper. It actually hurt your eyes trying to decipher the mess. Continue reading →