Genres of Communication Interfaces in BIM-Enabled Architectural Practice

This paper explores the interaction and different types of representations enacted in a BIM-enabled environment that involves interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary collaboration among teams of designers in an architectural praxis context. By means of an ethnographic study conducted over the course of an architectural project from schematic design to construction documents, including five disciplines and twenty subjects, genres of communication interfaces are identified between BIM-authoring tools, sketching interfaces and domain specific analysis tools, and explored within the realm of distributed cognition. Implications in architectural practice and education are then discussed.