Yes, yes YES! BIM 3.5

John Tobin is an architect at EYP Architecture & Engineering PC. An article he wrote was recently forwarded to a BIM linked in group I follow. In it he talks about how BIM is evolving. He talks about how Architects, contractors and others are converging on what I would consider to be true BIM - fully functional virtual models that translate directly into construction ready documents and orders. He even talked about an online collaboration between the Architects / Designers, Engineers and the Contractors / Builders to create these virtual buildings.

He calls this BIM 3.0.

But that's where he stopped! He didn't take the interesting and logical next step. Once you have this model - you can reuse it. In a similar manner to the digital revolution in other media... 3D/4D/5D building models can be broken apart and reused in other buildings. Doors, windows and wiring systems in this building are 'plug-and-play' bits for the next building. But what happens when you want to say... copy the entire south wing and attach a new east wing to fit a new site. It's this ability and re-useability that will define the popular and dare I say it, wealthy designers & model owners of the next century. If you need another high-rise; you copy the core components from one you already have and add a new skin to give it a new look. You've just cut *months* of hard design work out of the loop. The cost of your new buildings drops which allows for better margins, cheaper re-sales and a distinct competitive advantage for the builders.

Then combine that re-use with the ability for these bigger models to be broken into manufacturable parts and you again save tons of money.

I call this BIM++.

Everything you ever wanted to know...

About the Future of Building Information Modeling

http://www.larsonobrien.com/blog/index.php/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-future-of-bim/08/27/2009/

Most important bit I saw: 160% increase in the use of BIM in only 4 years. This is where the productivity improvements for the construction industry are going to come from in the next decade.

A couple of key bits from the post - read it! It's enlightening.

What’s So Great About BIM?

The benefits may be too numerous to expand upon in length, but here are ten to start with:

1. Shortened design and development phases
2. Increased interoperability for all project team members
3. Clash detection for building systems
4. Increased ability for prefabrication off of the job site
5. Shortened construction schedule
6. Measurable ROI for users
7. Reducing time spent on contract documents
8. Integration of other software for scheduling, materials, costs, energy consumption, etc.
9. Potential for easing LEED project submittals with calculations and energy estimates
10. Use of the BIM object after design and construction

BIM for Product Manufacturers

Many architectural product manufacturers are having their entire catalog “BIMed” so that they can remain competitive. Manufacturers recognize that BIM as a building process is becoming more common and that their products won’t be specified if they don’t offer a BIM object to put into the building model. BIM objects offered by manufacturers make the design and specification of products easier for architects designing in a BIM environment. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sweets-type BIM catalog is created in the future. If you’re a manufacturer and you don’t currently offer BIM objects, put it in your budget for 2010 and every year after that.

Change can be daunting, but investment in the future of your career is imperative to success in that field. Like former Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki said, “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”

BIM in Texas

The Texas Facilities Commission - the folks who contract out the construction of Texas State Buildings recently announced their adoption of BIM as a state-wide requirement. They are coming out with specifications and guidelines for state funded projects.

Special thanks to (BIM) x for pointing at this video.

Big Problems

Speaking of tackling a big problem...

The Gaiaship design is addressing the issues that cause 20% of the total Carbon dioxide emmissions and about 2% of the methane emmissions. (2005 numbers)

Roads, Residential and commercial buildings for CO2 and the land-fill & waste-water contribution to methane.

What's your plan to save the world :)

Baby boom - Population distribution

I've made several references to the likely growth in multi-family & senior housing. This graph at calculatedriskblog.com shows the baby boom crowd as they move through the years. We're at the point where they are in the range of 45-55 and the demand for suburban housing reflects this. Soon though, many of these aging suburban dwellers will want more aminities, healthier living and want less home-maintainence demands. The ideal answer for many will likely be a more urban, walkable lifestyle.

The projections show them dying off and the curve smoothing out - but then we get this huge population spike in 20+ years of +80 folks. These folks will require somewhere to live - and that somewhere will likely NOT include driving themselves places.

The GaiaShip design can easily be used to build 'Sun City' like places for all these folks.

Reburbia

My blogroll exploded recently with the results from the Reburbia contest at Dwell.

Austin Contrarian posted about it when it first came out and my comments then revolved around rebuilding the commercial spaces rather than attempting to actually get around the NIMBY's to do weird things to the neighborhoods themselves. The Dwell submissions has some of that - but I also found things pointing to how we can add on/rebuild large lot suburbia and McMansions into higher density.

The winner - Frog's Dream: McMansions turned into biofilter water treatment plants.

http://www.re-burbia.com/2009/08/05/the-frogs-dream-suburban-eco-water-management/

AKA - turn a wasteful use of space into a suburban swamp. Not bad in theory - until you think about what it's going to actually look like. I hope you've got plenty of mosquitofish and flowers to keep that from being just the fenced in lot at the end of the block where we dump our shower water. I can just imagine this stinking to high heaven, looking like a mud pit and providing the local kids a place to get really dirty. It's why when I've proposed bio-remediation for the Gaiaship; I've enclosed it; tied it to bio-gas harvesting and algae growth for bio-fuels. At least even the judges think the idea is "poetic, not practical".

Second place is the suburban farm. Again - neat idea; I've even thought about building the empty lot at the end of my street into something like this but as my green thumb is more than a little brown, I'd need the right team and I don't know many farmers personally. Other aspects of this idea are re-building a couple of the suburban lots into walk-up lounges/restaurants. That would be excellent if the density around them would support it. But without the density to start with - you're having to pull outside the 1/2 mile walk limits usually cited by urban designers and you defeat the purpose of having it on a cul-de-sac. You have to provide for parking and all of a sudden you're back to the common strip mall.

Third place brings a real smile to my face. Turning the big-box building back into the farm it likely built over. This is a take-off of the vertical urban farm concept as some of the commenter's have noted. Using the large in-door spaces and parking lots to grow local produce & food. Good idea all around and one of the most viable options for actual use today.

Other notables are neat; some totally wonky; but most are interesting takes on small aspects of the larger sustainability problem. The Big-Box Biofuel generator; Hyper Localized water purification in old swimming pools; Farming in the wasted spaces next to the road (pollution!?)

I note that any of the ones that strike me as viable are already incorporated into the GaiaShip Design. That's possibly a bias on my part. I can't help but wonder if once we start advertising the design of the Gaiaship to the world how many front page articles will it generate? How many design magazines will have full page spreads? How many people will sign up to own?

NREL Submission - Product

Product

Function and Benefit: A complete virtual model of an eco-city campus, called a GaiaShip, allows for rapid site design and customization, exact resource and cost estimates, and hyper accurate construction schedules. The integration of municipal services like waste recycling and renewable power generation provide highly desirable selling points for both the municipalities and the end-users. Buildings that provide net positive power to the local grid and only barely rely on existing municipal waste and water treatment systems will be quickly approved by cash strapped municipal governments. Environmentally friendly housing with walkable retail, office and transportation systems integrated in them are highly attractive to an aging suburban populace, young high tech students and workers, families and New-Urban enthusiasts. Building a GaiaShip is dramatically cheaper due to the elimination of waste from the construction process and the dramatic compression of time from ground breaking to ribbon-cutting. Selling a GaiaShip to a management company is also correspondingly easier than normal. It has built in revenue streams from surplus power generation and a highly marketable product for end-users and home-owners. Development Stage: Stage 1: Engineering and model development (Current); Stage 2: manufacturing system design. Stage 3: marketing and sales Future Needs: Prototype campus with a forward thinking Land Developer and Builder

I crammed a ton of information into the above blurb; let's dissect it a bit.

The model is the key. And we're not talking here about a simple three dimensional 1/20th scale thing that you display in the lobby to wow your visitors. We're talking about a fully detailed virtual building. Running water, power generation, wires & pipes all integrated into the structure.

What's the benefit of that!? Well, the most common complaint a construction company has is the architectural plans are pretty - but not possible because of x,y and don't forget Z!! With a full function building with all it's pipes laid out, it's wires run, it's duct work in place there is *never* a need for a change order. No more need to say 'Oh shit - lets move this wall over a bit', or 'how are we possibly going to get a pipe over there!?' Change orders are the bane of a construction time-line and one of the major cost-sinks. Some of this is addressed by simply having extremely detailed plans, 3d drawings and a really good set of engineers engaged early in the design phase of the project. This gets us through the first 3D's.

The last 2 D's time and cost fall into the bucket of the module construction. With a BIM model you can fairly easily define blocks, panels and other components to be constructed in a factory or multiple factories. With a manufacturing line to back those modules up; you can now *much* more accurately forecast the time it's going to take to build pieces. You have no weather delays and are able to set working hours reliably. You can also begin to take advantage of supply chain management and other advantages of a factory... like multiple trailers at the job-site, machines and robots that cannot be deployed at a construction site, air conditioning for your workers and security for your supplies.

So the product we're putting together here isn't just the structure: how you put the blocks together, wire the walls and pipe the floors; we're integrating manufacturing specifications. Most module manufacturers will be outsourced partnerships to help control the supply line and allow for redundancy, site location flexibility and liability distribution. Manufacturers could sign up to be mass-producers for the wall panels; or custom artisan shops for art-deco interiors. Both would configure to our structural specifications so that their modules would snap in (and out - deconstruction rather than demolition). I anticipate artisan shops being created in clusters, even on-site of these mixed use communities and provide long term localization and customization for folks looking to re-do and upgrade their interiors.

So the question becomes - why not just build models of the blocks - why focus on the Gaia-Ship as the model - it's HUGE!?.

We have to have *something* we can show people on how it all can fit together. Everyone and everything in the pool so to speak. We need to be able to show a facility that can play host to ten thousand people, be a net positive energy producer; sip a the local water supply only when necessary; provide it's own food, jobs, retail, walking parks, etc. We have to show what you can DO with the blocks for people to begin to see the value of the blocks themselves. By it's very nature and scale, it will garner significant media and public attention. It's a marketing ploy and excellent exercise even if we never actually build a single, complete GaiaShip community.

And then, once we've proven the virtual model works (wind tunnels & number crunching galore) we tweak it; miniaturize it and bring it down in scale to broaden the market reach. Since we're doing this with pre-made blocks and manufacturing it's a matter of simple assembly. This is the aspect I plan to 'open-source'. We provide the blocks & standards and we encourage, allow and promote the social development of new structures; building shapes and configurations. The popular ones get chosen by a construction firm. We develop the complete BIM 5D model and charge our 20%. Foundations start getting poured and module factories all kick into gear. The construction company finishes their button-up and sells it to the highest bidder. The bank gets paid and the public gets another 'Deep-Green' option when they look for their next home.

Let's talk a brief bit about this new buzzword - "Deep Green" Green has become pretty ubiquitous; so much so that it's impact is being blunted. When you are aiming to allow 10 thousand people to live sustainably then you can start looking at 'Deep Green' as a classification. This level of sustainability is usually reserved for amazonian tribes that don't wear clothes and haven't learned to burn the forest around them to graze their cattle. People who have been doing the same things for generations without count, able to live in harmony with the earth and their surroundings. Now, I'm not claiming that we can totally turn around the culture that spawned movies like Super-Size me and An Inconvenient Truth; but I am saying that when you have people able to take advantage of high-tech green living features like on-site food production; waste management; space age water recycling; and walking to the store in a built environment that doesn't inconvenience them ...

if you build it - they will come.

NREL Submission - Business & Resources

Inception: Looking at American apartments, suburbia, and urban lifestyles and contrasting them with the concepts of sustainability.Found a dramatic dissonance. Current Structure: Brian Drake, Entrepreneur Management Team: TBD Intellectual Property: 5D (3D plus Time, and Cost) building models with integrated energy co-generation, bio-digestion; coupled with manufacturing processes for rapid, cost effective construction. Tangible Assets: Building Information Models (BIMs), System of mass-customization modular construction.

I started this back in the winter of 2007. My process improvement mind finally connected a bunch of dots when I realised - I can't stand apartment complexes. Not that I actually hate them - but they represent to me all that is wrong with modern dense living. They have buildings that have pavement between them creating a pedestrian hell where the best you can hope for is to not be assaulted by some stranger as you hurry to your car. If you live in a 'Luxury' apartment complex you get a gate, which does nothing, really it just looks more upscale. If you are willing to spend real money - you can get a garage so you don't have to worry any more about the neighbors.

But at no time are you encouraged to socialize. Your porches are screened for privacy and they are too far apart or pointed awkwardly. If you're headed to your car you're likely headed somewhere else and are not going to stop and say hi. And you are always headed somewhere else because we've segregated all the things we do into separate compartments - living over here - retail over here - industry tucked away near the freeway. To go to work - we drive. To go to the store - we drive. To do ANYTHING outside the home... we drive. Apartments have become the red-headed stepchild of suburban style zoning

These same issues apply to suburbia; but at least there you might be able to find sidewalks and yards. People walking by are by definition *not* headed out to run errands and the opportunity to get to know your neighbors exists. But we still have the problem that suburbia and apartments alike encourage inherently wasteful ways of life and in that suburbia easily trumps the apartment just due to keeping the yard green.

So... my process improvement brain said "There has to be a better way." An idea formed that perhaps... just perhaps with the right technology and design specifications we could do better for dense living.

Enter the GaiaShip. I'm not one to think small; and my passion for science fiction and technology told me nothing was really out of reach. I wanted it all - luxury; green; friendly; and high technology.

Over the last year I formed an LLC to be prepared. I knew from past experience with start-ups of my own that LLC's were ideal for investors. At the moment - with all the funding coming from my own wallet - I own it 100%. I fully anticipate giving up some of that stake once the right money is found.

But I'm not alone. I know I can't do this solo. I plied my network and found Mike Schoenfeld of DH Investment Company, a local land developer. What he tells me highlights the challenges faced by pursuing such a BIG problem, that there's a real market for pre-done engineering and is willing to join the team when I secure funding.

You may have noticed that I've been pointing at Michelle Kaufman's modular designs. In a recent communique she too wants to be on-board for this effort... once funding is secure.

With a Land Developer and the perfect Architect on board we fill two of my major experience gaps. My history is with technology, manufacturing and process engineering - typically automating processes that take humans a long time to do but computers can do in seconds. Over the course of my 10 year career at Dell, the projects I implemented or was a major contributor to cumulatively were saving Dell over $16 million per year. Most of that in pure time savings. With my expertise as an Entrepreneur (this is my 4th and largest startup) and my skills in technology, knowledge management, marketing, project management and even a little bit of sales; I'm ideally suited to manage the people and technology for the engineering firm that can make this happen.

I have yet to find the Soul Mate that Guy Kawasaki claims is necessary in Art of the Start but I'm open to any interested applicants. I would love to have someone as passionate about making a difference as I am. Someone to talk to, plan with and keep my feet planted firmly on terra firma.

About the company itself; the assets the company would command would be the model, the computers to run them on, and a social media site for publishing and interacting with the customers, the public at large, open source design contributors, students and the average Joe who wants to configure his dream condo. I liken this aspect of the site to the Dell.com computer configurator. So many times I've specked out my dream machine just to see how much it would cost. A configurator for a home should prove to be more attractive to the prospective home buyer than the computer one is for self-professed geeks.

I've talked a bit about the benefits of open sourcing parts of the model. Most of that revolves around the 3D structural design and surfaces. What the building is constructed out of: concrete, wood and steel. How it's all shaped and how it fits together to fit in a modular fashion. Any input from the public on these 'wigits' and how to build them would be welcome additions.

Key to maintaining a strong IP position though is keeping some of it back. What exactly is kept back will be a decision for down the road. However, I'm already thinking the integration of the municipal functions would be critical to keep secret (for security reasons too); the database and web site integration with sources & contractors that enable true fifth dimensional project planning... cost and time; and finally the knowledge of the manufacturing lines and processes to use for construction of the key structural components & wet-walls.

I've got a company, key players, a short and long term plan and a strong set of IP. I just need the funding to make it all come together.

NREL Submission - Target Market

Target Market

Customers: Multi-Family builders, urban-planners, municipal governments, and ultimately the urban public. Market and Industry: Large Scale ($150 million or larger) Multi-Family construction is scratching the surface of sustainability, finding that it’s good for the bottom line as well as marketing image. But the builders aren’t going “Deep Green” because they don’t have a proven option that can be easily duplicated. Modular construction of a facility with integrated advanced on-site waste recycling and renewable energy production improves on the cost structure of site construction and reduces the impact the construction company and ultimately the end users have on the environment. Competition: Multi-Family engineering firms adopting similar design criteria: We will work to establish public standards that encourage the extension of the designs, thereby driving down the ultimate cost of the construction. We’ll look to license and consult on the model with other industry players. Barriers: The status quo: construction and land planning is a very conservative industry. Experimentation is rare and celebrated as architectural marvels, yet the majority of residential construction follows a few standard models: Stand-alone single family/Duplex, Row House, Apartment complex, and High-rise.

In brief, the company will be selling a virtual model of a building and design spec for constructing or reconfiguring a manufacturing plant.

Since we're talking about doing *lots* of these lego blocks the model is going to be of a large facility or campus. When you have a large facility you need to manage energy, food, water, transportation and waste. Most developers rely on the 'build a road' model and then tell the city to take care of all the rest of those things. The plan here is to take advantage of all these bad-ass new green technologies to do on-site energy production; waste processing and water capture and re-use to eliminate the need for the 'build a road' standard. Roads and big buildings go together like... well like an apartment complex. Apartments follow the 'build a road' model but because of their density you get a pavement surface with buildings scattered about. Every building is oriented to it's parking. It's not 'walkable' in many cases and it's rarely desired as an 'ownership' opportunity for the ex-suburban.

We're not going to follow the usual 'build a road' model. If you've read other parts of this blog you'll know what I mean, but for brevity (and IP's sake) I'm not going into it right now. Suffice it to say we're going to do in-situ processing of waste; water and even food production. Now, I'm not saying this will be a totally enclosed space-station that happens to sit on planet earth. It will tie into the surrounding grid for the usual benefits of grid tie utilities; but the on-site processes will reduce the life-long environmental impact of the building; reduce it's operating costs in significant ways and provide a *very* marketable end-product for attracting the Environmentalist Yuppies.

But who actually *BUY's* the model... aka where's the money yo!

Multi-family; mixed use developers. There are going to be a lot of these in the next few years. The eco-yuppies aren't the only people looking to go ex-suburban. There is a HUGE aging population from the Baby Boom that is about to require a much more urban lifestyle because the suburban home usually isn't suited to long term elderly care.

With a complete BIM model; manufacturing spec and in-situ utilities, all the developer has to provide is a green-space big enough. They call up our company and say "I want a campus that can house X hundreds or Y Thousands on the plot bordered by road's A, B, C & D." We turn to our CAD team and architect geniuses and they get the land survey and plop a virtual building on it. The BIM model then spits out a list of materials required; local sources for said materials; a few registered contractors and a complete project plan that details the first spadeful of dirt to the opening day. We charge our fee and they then use the model to build the actual thing.

Neat thing about the model... we then feed it into a couple of other bits of software and we get video walk-through; model homes; even full 3D virtual reality simulations that prospective clients and their to-be homeowners can use to visualize their own space; before the ground is ever disturbed. Pre-sales can begin immediately... and not just to the big anchor tenant usually required for retail & office buildings.

So, who's the competition? I'd say every big engineering & design firm out there has an ability to compete in this space. Building models like this takes a lot of work and maintenance but it can be done with enough focus and effort. To start; we will be focusing on the large multi-family mixed use new urban style construction. With that kind of focus; we can differentiate with the technology we integrate for utilities; the style of buildings; and the manufacturing lines. As the company matures we would expand the options available to smaller campuses and possibly even more typical looking, 'dense suburban' development.

To encourage adoption & sales of our models. We would open-source and crowd-source some aspects of the model's themselves. Even though this could encourage direct competition; it's more likely to spur derivatives and the widespread adoption and re-use of the manufacturing standards - driving down the subsequent cost of the model's actual construction. We are a service provider; not the construction company itself. We would maintain some control over aspects of the model like municipal technology integration and structural systems. With widespread adoption of the specifications and myriad options for the manufacturing of the interior spaces; our customers the big construction firms would turn to us to meld them all together and manage the inputs into their project.

Other customers of these models - governments of developing countries. Countries like China and India are managing HUGE new middle classes. They are paying attention to the mistakes of their developed nation forbears and understand that the cul-de-sac isn't the sustainable way to do things. Urban spaces are critical for these countries and the development of 5D models of the New Urban style for their countries would be of enormous benefit to them.

Finally - who else needs the ability to quickly design self-sustaining facilities. The US and other countries who build large military bases around the world would be ideal customers of a facility that could be quickly constructed and has some measure of self-containment. Not quite the 'Deep Green' we were thinking earlier; but this olive green market is certainly viable.

To plan 50 years down the line (I believe in long term goals too) the viable markets become off-planet installations. Yup, we're talking the moon, mars and beyond. However, to do it there - we have to know how to do it here first.

NREL Submission - Opportunity

Opportunity

There’s a better way to build the newly popular mixed use communities: Modular, Environmentally Sustainable and Fast. The worldwide emergent middle class is desperately looking for a cost effective option that allows them the high-tech luxury of the modern, semi-urban American lifestyle, AND earth friendliness. Demanding it all, and willing to pay a premium for it.

I just picked up Matt Stevens Managing a Construction Firm on Just 24 Hours a Day. In it he claims that even with the advent of computing; the construction industry hasn't seen the productivity increases the rest of the world has. I aim to change this.

Part of the issue that I can see is that the Knowledge Management (note the caps - key words) of the construction industry is still in nascent stages. BIM (Building Information Modeling) or building a virtual model of the building before you build the actual thing is only really being experimented with. I'm part of a Linkedin group about BIM and while success story after success story is touted; most people are still looking for ways & means to prove the benefits of BIM to their construction bosses. Everyone claims that once people see the power of a 5 dimensional BIM model (3d structural with cost & time project management dimensions included) their whole worldview changes.

I believe it. Show someone the benefits and control of a complete project plan (I'm talking the real deal here... not the half-assed thing most people call a project plan) and their worldview can and usually does change.

But that's all about the 'HOW'... lets talk about the why (I'll get into the details when talking about the market next... but lets get a basic overview)

The middle class is changing. For years it's been focused on material goods and bigger houses. The recession rung a bell in the belfry and it's still reverberating. Echos bounced all over the world. Some people panicked; others simply slowed down and took stock.

The Executive branch of the US government has changed it's stance on home-ownership... though even that powerful voice cannot stop the psychosis that underlies the *requirement* for a person to own their own space. The desire for control and the empowerment that ownership provides, not to mention the societal and tax benefits all drive us to crave the owner title.

So now the middle class has been told - ownership isn't for everyone. And they thought; "sure... not everyone can be an owner, but I want it for me!" The market still exists but as a result of the recession and the changing attitudes; people are beginning to look for options that may not fit the 'norm'.

Enter 'Green'. The buzzword of the decade; nay of the century. This re-evaluation of the environmental impact of the typical suburban lifestyle leaves those of us who have done the reading horrified at our impact. I was raised an environmentalist. I even went to a march or two; planted my trees, did a tour of the wild-life refuge and then went on consuming; driving everywhere; and in general being a typical middle class yuppie. Many of my generation (Baby boomlets as I call us) did the same. So, what to do when you find out you're 'that guy'. We start looking for options. We find amazing ones in California with Michelle Kauffman's designs; We see custom 'green' houses going up all over the place (and while awesome - know they are forever out of our price ranges); I even see some interesting thinking in the New Urban movement but the options there are few and far between.

But it still all comes down to cost - and green is expensive. We want it; we're willing to pay a bit more for it (see the organic BOOM even through the recession) but we can't be ignorant of the bottom line.

So the market is looking for inexpensive, green living spaces. Enter modular construction.

Now modular isn't new - Hell the original suburban houses were kits sold by sears back just after the great depression. Through the decades though balloon frame houses (the usual stick & brick's in suburbia) were seen as a higher quality product than the trailer park and factory built houses that could be put on the back of a truck and hauled to the site. The size restrictions and material choices on those houses as well kept them in the 'low rent' districts.

However, recent advances in modular have given rise to places like this, this, and this. These are homes built in a factory; trucked to the site and assembled like legos on pre-formed foundations. Lots of money is saved by building this way - mostly in the time savings; but it's still one-off operations. We're not kicking these things out like Henry Ford. Building a single car in the shop around the corner may save you some small amount of money; but build a thousand and you're talking major productivity improvements.

We have to scale this operation UP. The best way to do that is... drumroll please - BIM coupled with a standard manufacturing spec.

NREL Submission - Raw form

Part 1: Opportunity

Elevator pitch: There’s a better way to build the newly popular mixed use communities: Modular, Environmentally Sustainable and Fast. The worldwide emergent middle class is desperately looking for a cost effective option that allows them the high-tech luxury of the modern, semi-urban American lifestyle, AND earth friendliness. Demanding it all, and willing to pay a premium for it.

Part 2: Target Market

Customers: Multi-Family builders, urban-planners, municipal governments, and ultimately the urban public. Market and Industry: Large Scale ($150 million or larger) Multi-Family construction is scratching the surface of sustainability, finding that it’s good for the bottom line as well as marketing image. But the builders aren’t going “Deep Green” because they don’t have a proven option that can be easily duplicated. Modular construction of a facility with integrated advanced on-site waste recycling and renewable energy production improves on the cost structure of site construction and reduces the impact the construction company and ultimately the end users have on the environment. Competition: Multi-Family engineering firms adopting similar design criteria: We will work to establish public standards that encourage the extension of the designs, thereby driving down the ultimate cost of the construction. We’ll look to license and consult on the model with other industry players. Barriers: The status quo: construction and land planning is a very conservative industry. Experimentation is rare and celebrated as architectural marvels, yet the majority of residential construction follows a few standard models: Stand-alone single family/Duplex, Row House, Apartment complex, and High-rise.

Part 3: Business and Resources

Inception: Looking at American apartments, suburbia, and urban lifestyles and contrasting them with the concepts of sustainability. Found a dramatic dissonance. Current Structure: Brian Drake, Entrepreneur Management Team: TBD Intellectual Property: 5D (3D plus Time, and Cost) building models with integrated energy co-generation, bio-digestion; coupled with manufacturing processes for rapid, cost effective construction. Tangible Assets: Building Information Models (BIMs), System of mass-customization modular construction.

Part 4: Product

Function and Benefit: A complete virtual model of an eco-city campus, called a GaiaShip, allows for rapid site design and customization, exact resource and cost estimates, and hyper accurate construction schedules. The integration of municipal services like waste recycling and renewable power generation provide highly desirable selling points for both the municipalities and the end-users. Buildings that provide net positive power to the local grid and only barely rely on existing municipal waste and water treatment systems will be quickly approved by cash strapped municipal governments. Environmentally friendly housing with walkable retail, office and transportation systems integrated in them are highly attractive to an aging suburban populace, young high tech students and workers, families and New-Urban enthusiasts. Building a GaiaShip is dramatically cheaper due to the elimination of waste from the construction process and the dramatic compression of time from ground breaking to ribbon-cutting. Selling a GaiaShip to a management company is also correspondingly easier than normal. It has built in revenue streams from surplus power generation and a highly marketable product for end-users and home-owners. Development Stage: Stage 1: Engineering and model development (Current); Stage 2: manufacturing system design. Stage 3: marketing and sales Future Needs: Prototype campus with a forward thinking Land Developer and Builder

Part 5: Path-to-Market Strategy

Market Strategy: Publish interior design systems using 3d applications like Maya, Revit, Google Earth and even the CryEngine2 3D game engine. This allows Architects, students and even the general public to design interiors for the GaiaShip which they can then purchase and have constructed or publish online to popular social media sites and virtual worlds like Google Earth, Second life and others as they come available. Ads will be placed in targeted publications for industry. Public-Space design contests will be sponsored at local schools and non-profits, with spaces actually being built. Supplier and Distributor Relationships: Just In Time Manufacturing; exact suppliers to be determined after sites have been defined for local sourcing of materials. Distributors of product will be Multi-Family Land Development companies around the world who will license the use of the design IP for particular sites. Purchase of licenses will include consulting and site specific architectural plan generation. Deployment method and partners: As primarily a software model and manufacturing process specification; IP is transportable to any location world-wide where construction sites and resources are available. Key Milestones on the Path to Deployment: Engineering Development of Model; Design of Manufacturing System; Construction of prototype campus (proof of concept); Refinement and Customization of Model; publishing of 3d-interiors; Marketing and Sales

Part 6: Sustainable Advantage

Business Model: Develop and License 5D BIM model of GaiaShip. Consulting, Refinement, and miniaturization of the model to extend the applicable markets. Competitive Advantage: “Deep Green” - Tight Integration of power co-generation and water/waste management systems; coupled with manufacturing standard and 3d marketing. Focus on reducing the size requirements of the facility while still employing core benefits of municipal level resource management. Cost / margin benefits: Post initial model development, resale and re-use of the design becomes inexpensive and margins over 1000% are possible. Incubator Affiliation: None

Part 7: Financials

Sales and Gross Profits (in millions): Year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Revenues -3.15 -2.73 9.90 9.90 49.50 EBITDA -3.15 -2.73 7.17 7.17 46.77 *First sale is 20% of $150 million prototype project in 2012 amortized over 3 years. Second is scaled up $600 million project. Once proven; design can scale to multiple simultaneous projects with corresponding income. Funding Needs: $5,882,800 for Model and manufacturing system development Exit Strategy: Sale of BIM model, web-site & engineering resources to global architectural or land development firm.

Part 8: Key Risks and Future Needs

Risks: LEED specification changing dramatically (low); Market shift away from new-urban mixed use (low); Inability to find Builder willing to execute. (moderate) Needs: Seed Capital, Engineering Team; Executive Team; Builder Partner

Lighthouse R us

I sometimes feel like a lighthouse; I can only focus my energy in one direction at a time. While I've got an aspect of my life illuminated it glows and grows rapidly. Things happen; changes happen; growth happens.

And the rest of the world stays dark; waiting for my focus to return. I spin my light daily; focusing on the day job, the family and the other more immediate requirements. But sometimes I can squeeze out a bit of time for my dreams & visions for the future.

So while I'm not always consistent about posting to this space - that doesn't mean I'm not still working on the goal. The hazard of being a one-person blog is sometimes posts can be a bit 'bursty'. Bear with me; I've got good stuff coming.

I've recently submitted to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) business plan competition. They chose 38 companies to present before a panel of investors - obviously it's a plea for money and a way to get your name out there. I did this before, in kind of a practice run with the MIT competition earlier this year. Obviously I wasn't selected; but the experience of codifying a business plan out of the stuff of this blog was enlightening. A bit of refinement and a lot more research and I've come up with a two page masterpiece of wishful thinking; market analysis; good ideas and guesswork. Aka - a typical business plan for a startup.

MIT had restrictions on who could view the submission. I wasn't allowed to share it with anyone outside the competition. I dug through the NREL site and didn't find any kind of restriction like that this time so I'm posting my 2 page executive summary that was submitted. I'm also going to take advantage of my ability to use more than two pages to dissect certain areas of the plan; put links to supporting documents; information and other research.

So... On with the show: