Integrated and Collaborative Architectural Design: 10 Years of Experience Teaching BIM

In Brazil, undergraduate courses in architecture and urbanism under promote technologically mediated collaboration in design studio classes. The industry is incorporating BIM and has been looking for collaborative skilled employees. Teaching BIM should take into account issues related to student integration through collaborative methods. This paper presents the summary of a study to evaluate the collaborative process mediated by BIM over the past ten years in its capstone course, contemplating learning and educational strategies. Therefore, the following questions ought to be asked: Were design exercises appropriate? Was the adopted dynamics of collaboration coherent? Did the collaborative tools and standards serve the mediating function? Was collaborative training fostered? Action research is the methodology used to conduct this study. Each year, the evaluation process of the previous sequence is carried out, followed by the planning of the current one. Through the historical comparison between the course curriculum and collaboration strategies adopted over the years, there have been changes in the understanding of how to use BIM in a collaborative process for educational purposes. The two-axes collaborative integration method developed over the years of the course, where students are tested to collaborate, at the same time, in a design process and in a research process that assists the design, is an innovation that results from the evaluation cycles based on the research-action method. It was possible to conclude that the essence of teaching collaboration mediated by BIM follows the same precepts of the current BIM definition. To teach BIM, one must comprehend how the processes, policies, and technologies are related to the design teaching goals.