What is BIM for interior design?
Plan, view, and check your design choices. Let’s find out why BIM has become the essential tool for interior design
If you work in the interior design sector, you know how important a good presentation is to communicate ideas to discerning clients.
As we know, BIM supports you across all phases from design to realization of your interior design project: from conception to communication to the customer, through to construction and maintenance of the asset over time.
In this article, we’ll find out more about BIM for interior design and which interior design software you can use to deal with these aspects.
Interior design project | Render created with Edificius directly from a BIM model
Do interior designers use BIM?
BIM (Building Information Modeling) is now a widespread working methodology adopted by several technical disciplines, including architects, engineers and interior designers.
For interior designers in particular, BIM is a useful tool for developing creativity and visualising ideas and project solutions as if they had already been created. The realistic representation obtained from BIM models (render, real-time video, virtual reality navigation, etc.) allows professionals in the sector and their customers to focus attention on the functionality and aesthetic qualities of the space to be to achieve.
Therefore, interior designers use BIM as a tool to support the design, the presentation of project proposals to clients and as a method of verifying the feasibility of ideas developed during the concept phase.
In addition, it is important to remember that BIM is much more than a simple 3D representation or software used by engineers and architects to produce documentation and graphics in a construction process.
BIM is an intelligent tool, a working method, a useful process for a multitude of disciplines to share information during the entire life cycle of the building. A BIM model never stops evolving, just like the buildings we live and work in.
If you are interested in BIM, here’s another great reference for you “The advantages of BIM“.
How does technology help interior design?
Thanks to the latest design and visulisation technologies, the interior design sector is also evolving rapidly. Traditional tools, some of which were used up to a few years ago, are now obsolete and outdated by new technologies and new ways of operating.
Here’s everything you need to know about new technologies applied to interior design to work smarter and be more competitive on the market.
First of all, technology helps you in the design phase and supports your creativity and the search for new ideas and interior design solutions.
Until a few years ago, to collect ideas for your interior design projects, you were certainly looking for inspiration in design magazines, fairs, travels and inspections. These sources of inspiration are now accompanied by new possibilities: specialized websites, interior design blogs, webinars and online courses, etc.
The images, projects, 3D models you have saved, can be safely stored on a cloud platform and shared with your colleagues and customers.
Collaboration with your colleagues is another fundamental aspect and is greatly facilitated by the use of current technologies.
You can use BIM management system to collaborate in real-time with your colleagues, view, share and manage interior design projects with ease, work directly online with any device (PC, tablet, smartphone) and from anywhere. You can organize meetings and virtual chats to exchange opinions, work updates and share files quickly and securely.
Another key aspect is the use of interior design software that helps professionals and customers visualize spaces in a realistic way. BIM architectural design software allows you to design in 3D and quickly achieve photorealistic rendering and engaging presentations that facilitate the communication of the project.
Project of a two-room flat | AI-Render produced with Edificius
Finally, one of the most interesting technological developments is certainly the use of virtual reality in interior design projects.
Imagine offering your clients a totally immersive, realistic and engaging consulting experience. With the use of a VR viewer, your customer will be able to experience designed spaces and environment, showing furniture arrangements, materials, etc.
These new tools allow you to go from a traditional 2D representation, two-dimensional and without information on materials and colors to a real immersive visual experience through which it is possible to know the space conceived in all its details, before it is actually realized. .
Interior design with VRi
To learn more, read also the article “Viewing and managing your project online with the usBIM viewer“.
How can BIM support interior design processes?
BIM supports interior design workflows because it allows designers and other industry related professionals to:
- view the project in 3D using advanced, photo-realistic visuals;
- avoid design errors;
- reduce communication gaps and misunderstandings using high-performance realtime rendering, video presentations, real-time model navigation, virtual reality, etc.;
- manage data and information during the asset’s entire life cycle directly from the BIM model;
- obtain automatic graphical and technical drawings from the BIM model;
- collaborate virtually with professionals, companies and subcontractors;
- adopt a language shared by all stakeholders and based on a single multidisciplinary model that contains multi-disciplinary information ranging from the structural, plant, architectural and interior design aspects;
- get a better understanding to make informed choices starting right from the design phase;
- planning of all phases from design to execution while avoiding errors and needs for unpredicted changes during construction;
- check for any interferences during the design phase.
