Introducing interdisciplinary collaboration into design curriculum identifying the appropriate technological infrastructure

Abstract

There is an increasing adoption of BIM technology in the AEC industry. Organizations are forced to restructure their practices. The role of the architect within the new multi-disciplinary design team will depend on the architects' skills in communicating with other team members. Architecture schools need to prepare students for this change. Collaborative aspect of design should be incorporated into the curriculum. This paper reports on the collaboration initiative between the architecture and civil engineering departments at Balikesir University. The initiative is investigating the extent to which courses can be coordinated across departments. Students from three different courses have been asked to provide analysis and feedback for the same project concurrently. The results confirm that BIM technology can effectively support collaboration even among undergraduate students who are relatively inexperienced with interdisciplinary data exchange.