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AEC Mechanical BIM Design Hardware Collaboration

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News




Web-based real-time BIM change detection

3D Repo has announced the release of the first web based, real-time change detection software for 3D construction models


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HS2 gets BREEAM infrastructure certified

HS2 has become the UK's first infrastructure project to be awarded a BREEAM Infrastructure (pilot) Scheme Certificate for its ambitious sustainability strategy on Phase 1 of the project

Online Store for 3D, AR and VR models

With over 2 million models online Sketchfab, the world’s largest platform to publish, share and discover 3D content has launched the Sketchfab Store: a new marketplace to buy and sell assets for 3D, AR or VR projects


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Software Review

Allplan Bimplus

ALLPLAN's data focused BIM collaboration tool, Allplan Bimplus is the key to successful project delivery

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Case Studies

What goes around...

A historical roundhouse has been recreated in Scotland with the help of Trimble


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Talking to machines

The construction industry can increase productivity and quality while reducing energy consumption, lowering costs and saving time through creating strong links between designing and making. By Andrew Watts FICE FIED FIET FRSA RIBA, CEO of international building engineers, Newtecnic

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Chilling out

IES digs out the cold facts about industrial fridges using CFD

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A seismic challenge

The Grasshopper-ARCHICAD Live Connection V2.0 helped in the digital reconstruction of historic buildings destroyed in the August 2016 earthquakes in Italy

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Event Focus

Information exchange

The future of information management was the hot topic during the Q and A session of the Construction Computing Take Control seminar, held in association with Newforma in November

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Comment

Plastic demise
‘Well, this particular race appears to have prospered through the stone age, the iron and bronze ages, but succumbed to the plastic age – the rest of the planet’s species with them’ – a fitting epitaph from the aliens we never got around to meeting as they surveyed the congealed mess in front of them. Brought to mind when I bought a 50p packet of plastic ‘table decorations’ last weekend from a well-known card shop. Grey angular granules to be strewn around the wedding board to provide ‘colour’. Too small to recycle, destined to be swept up with dirty napkins and thrown in the bin.

We’re getting the message. Plastic waste is killing the oceans. The Asian waste bins don’t want our rubbish any more (they already have more than enough). We’re cutting down on plastic, recycling where we can, burying the rest – but without dramatic changes we will die off along with the animals we have slaughtered.

It’s a hard slog, though. Everything is double wrapped, mass production depends on its versatility and cheapness, and it comes in pretty colours. Disposing of it is complex. Chop it up and microparticles infest the oceans, burn it and you get toxic emissions, bury it and it lasts for thousands of years.

Like renewable energy, autonomous cars, urban expansion and sustainability, plastics are going to dominate our future – but not in a nice way. Widely used in all its forms throughout the construction industry, I would like to think that alternative and less harmful materials are being sought and tested.

PS. I bought the plastic bits to make just this point. A disgusting, tasteless and pointless bit of tat.

David Chadwick

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