About Building Stories
On the one hand “Building Stories” is a serialized book that breaks the digital transformation of the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operation (AECO) industry down into five steps and some useful mind hacks.
On the other hand, it’s the overall title of this substance. That contains the publication “BIM-Busters” demystifies myths about BIM.
You will read many stories - hence the title "Building Stories." The story of this book is that it's my second attempt. I threw away the first manuscript after reading it half a year later. It was just another one of these boring books. So, I sat down in the summer of 2022 and restarted from scratch with a completely new approach. Then the manuscript was untouched on my hard drive for almost one year and I had this small voice in the background of my mind. During my Xmas vacation, the voice got strong enough, and now it’s published in Substack
Introduction
I believe the best approach to learning is doing it by yourself. Unfortunately, this can be very costly, especially in organizations when the same "mistakes" are repeated consistently. The second-best approach is listening or reading stories. Stories will make remembering and relating the learnings to your life easier. You won't get a recipe, but hopefully, it will trigger your critical thinking - even more importantly, amuse you.
I tell these stories from other contributing authors and me. With the stories, you'll get to know the case - framework with five steps to understand the different levels of the digital transformation of the industry. It will help you to see where the company, the project, and the employees stand and where they should go further. The steps are:
Step 1: Awareness of the status quo
Step 2: Communicating and collaborating
Step 3: Automating what works
Step 4: Simulating building performance
Step 5: Empowering the business model
Moreover, I will share different mind hacks that helped me and others. These mind hacks are short, catchy phrases that remind us about a particular behavior. E.g., automate complicated, not complex, problems.
Why not subscribe
Please stop reading building stories when you are satisfied with how we design and build. It's not for you when you exactly know how the world works or when you are looking for a 100% serious and complete book about Building Information Modelling. For this, you will find better-fitting books on the market.
But maybe you know somebody who is troubled and unsatisfied, please share!
Why Subscribe
With “Buildings Stories” you get double the value of the free series “BIM-Busters” released irregularly.
The book with the same title is released once a week, chapter by chapter every Friday at 7:07 am.
With the paid subscription you get access to the full book to read. Moreover, I read the chapters to you. No AI voice-over but pure human imperfection.
It’s for you when you train or work in the architectural, engineering, or construction industry (AEC), especially when you want to change the status quo. A hallmark of being crazy is seeing things that do not exist; when you think about it, we in the AEC industry are all "crazy." We see buildings that don't exist yet, and we work together to make them happen. We are used to having these visions regarding buildings. When you are willing to look at the metalevel and transfer this "crazy" visionary skill to the way we work, please continue.
How to read the book
To read this book, I recommend two different approaches. One is linear, following the storyline of the anecdotes. The second is jumping to the mind hack of your interest. To navigate the jumps, you can use the Reference of mind hacks, look up the mind hack, jump to the corresponding page(s), and the next entry.
Although I talk a lot about myself and my life's story, it's not about me - it's about you! It's how these stories trigger your critical thinking and how they change your approach to reality. I'm a massive fan of constructivism - not the architectural style - but the psychological school. Do you know this story by Paul Watzlawik, in the book "The situation is hopeless but not serious?"
A man wants to hang a painting. He has the nail, but not the hammer. Therefore it occurs to him to go over to the neighbor and ask him to lend him his hammer.
But at this point, doubt sets in. What if he doesn't want to lend me the hammer? Yesterday he barely spoke to me. Maybe he was in a hurry. Or, perhaps, he holds something against me. But why? I didn't do anything to him.
If he would ask me to lend him something, I would, at once. How can he refuse to lend me his hammer? People like him make other people's life miserable. Worst, he thinks that I need him because he has a hammer. This has got to stop!
Suddenly, the guy runs to the neighbor's door, rings, and before letting him say anything, he screams: "You can keep your hammer, you bastard!"
In this constructive way, please enjoy!
