Voyansi Voices Blog

This month our team

We’ve arrived at Tulum and the landscape couldn’t be any different from NYC. Streets drastically shift from narrow to wide, and there are few tall buildings around them. Therefore, the sky occupies most part of our field of view.

Looking around you begin to appreciate the city’s palette. Brown colors mix with strident reds, yellows, and oranges. Of course, murals give life to almost every wall. They vary in size and are located almost in every corner.

You probably saw the news a year or so ago. Notre Dame going up in flames. When I got the notification on my phone, I felt it couldn’t be that bad: fires happen all the time, and in a large city with plenty of infrastructures, it would be easy for the fire department to put the blaze out. I guess there is a reason that I don’t play the lottery, I’m not very good at predicting the future. If you want to skip the wordplay of our blog today, feel free to check out our services page for our latest offering: HBIM Solutions.

Not so long ago, coordination between team members was a major issue. Not only everyone had to adjust their schedules, but also be fully aware of the project’s latest updates and modifications. This often led to confusion, lots of hours spent in old versions of a project, and the worst part: shuffling of deadlines.

Luckily, the scenario has changed. You know about BIM360 and other cloud collaboration platforms. We all know that cloud collaboration is here to make our life easier, especially in a post-pandemic world where many employees will work from home. But what if your organization is smaller, or does not have the budget to pay for high-cost licenses? 

Last year, many of our clients and our company changed the way we worked. For our larger clients already using Bim360, there was not much of a shift other than the space's employees were collaborating from. The software allows models to be collaborated on, simultaneously, by many team members, in real-time. Changes, suggestions, and improvements no longer take long periods of time. They can be discussed and implemented in minutes, and of course, this means quicker project delivery.

This year, our marketing team is spending time working in various office spaces across the world. We took a trip to Voyansi’s headquarters in NYC earlier this summer and spent the weekend exploring the architecture of The City that Never Sleeps. The colors, dynamic, and spirit of NY is unique and can’t be transmitted through pictures or videos.

However, daily life in a big city can be a little overwhelming. New York is full of surprises, and Roosevelt Island offers one great alternative to its flashy lights and loud sounds.

East River is the home of a small but special island with a rich history. 240m across at its widest section, Roosevelt Island has been called home by both the famous such as Kofi Anon and Sarah Jessica Parker as well as many infamous characters from NY such as Patrick McLaughlin and Boss Tweed. While still a part of Manhattan, Roosevelt Island is its opposite: quiet, homely, and mostly green-colored. It offers a drastic change from the city’s pace. There are almost no cars on the island and pedestrians take walks to get a new perspective of the city. The immense buildings are still close, but standing on Roosevelt Island feels like being lightyears away from them.

As my first piece of advice, the key to success in any training program is to balance and give importance to organization and methodology along with technical and practical training content. 

Ideally, your staff training should be thought of as a program rather than an isolated one-time event. Your program should contain specific objectives that your training program aims to achieve. 

For this reason, I’m dividing these ten tips into five generic ones (tips that apply to all training programs) and five specific to Revit.

Our visit to New Jersey included more than just steaks: Gabi has a long history in Voyansi, and her years of experience, in addition to working abroad, have transformed her into a highly skilled professional and a great person to interview.

I saw a post on a forum the other day of an architect who sent a marked-up drawing as part of a CAD to BIM project. It was a relatively small structure that was being modeled. Maybe 1500 square feet. This got me thinking, why did they not just bother to go out and scan the structure? Laser scanning 10 years ago may have seemed exotic. Today it’s commonplace enough that I have a small lidar scanner in my phone. I use it to measure things in my house or create simple 3d models. 

Maybe the architect in question was simply unfamiliar with reality capture technology, so I decided to write this post explaining the concept for those new to this way of working. Before you jump in, it’s essential to understand two key concepts: Point Clouds and Survey Points are central to working with BIM (no wonder why reality capture services are so important to us). If you are just getting familiar with reality capture technology this is an essential concept to understand. 

During the pandemic, many people had the opportunity to start working remotely. COVID-19 will be remembered for many things, and remote work is one of the biggest things people will remember for years.

Working from home has many advantages, but sometimes there are obstacles in the way. A bad internet connection, dogs barking or relatives coming in and out of a room can distract from the day’s work. As the world opens back up, many of us are choosing to shift

There are spaces designed for the people who find their own home to be uncomfortable at the time of working. They are often wide rooms equipped with desks, a few routers, and common spaces. Minimalism at the service of productivity.

Let me ask you a question, if you were to take a roadtrip, would you leave without looking at a map? I’m a planner, so personally, before even packing my suitcase, I’ve spent hours planning my route. If I’m taking a drive through the country I’ll make sure I know where there are areas I can’t get fuel and have a tentative schedule for where I’ll take breaks or grab a bite to eat. 

If you have taken a look in the news this week, you’ll notice record temperatures around the world. This is the first in a series of blogs that we will be writing to offer ideas on how your organization can leverage the power of BIM in order to play a part in reducing the impact we as humans have on our environment.

When we talk about climate change in our daily lives, we usually talk about pollution sources such as the cars we drive, or from burning fossil fuels to power our homes and businesses. As construction professionals however, we often forget that our industry is also a contributor. Estimates suggest that, the construction sector contributes to 23% of air pollution, 40% of drinking water pollution, and 50% of landfill wastes. Our role as professionals related to construction and as humans who share space with others and with nature as well, is to make the most out of each of the resources we use in our projects. The question is, how can we accomplish this? 

When people think of construction they imagine workers, beams, heavy equipment and, above all of those things, materials. Concrete, lime, even wood and iron might appear in their minds. However, most of the time they picture material wastes, the leftovers if you will. The real question is, where can you make a difference, and how to get started? 

Well, the BIM World Tour’s presence in New York is still giving us much to talk about. But this time let’s talk about the weather.

Walking the streets of New York under the rain is quite a unique experience. Yes, we are aware that rain is not an uncommon phenomenon, but stick with us here. The way the water hits the pavement produces a melody that merges with the honks, the pedestrian’s babbling, and the advertisements that give voice to buildings.

Hopefully, you got a chance to read our blog last week. My colleague Mike “the photographer” wrote a short piece on one of his favorite conference anecdotes: the Kodak Story and the dangers of not innovating. Long story short, if you think photography today, it’s not Kodak, but rather Apple, Sony, Samsung, or maybe Nikon. What happened? Lack of desire to be at the cutting edge of technology. 

If you’re reading this today, you are probably anxious to implement BIM but are wondering how you sell it to leadership. You know that a move to BIM is more than just an update to the “latest and greatest” CAD tools. Within an organization, capital expenditure approval involves not only calculating your overall project cost but also showing the justification for spending that money in the first place. Even if you believe the purchase is necessary and reasonable, you have to convince your other colleagues.  

If you’re reading this article, you probably already know that it’s essential to implement BIM, so I want you to reframe your mindset before making the business case. The starting point is a technological renovation that, far from being thought of as an expense, should be viewed as an investment in the future. You know you need to invest in your organization’s future, so the question really is: How do you prove it to skeptical stakeholders?