| 今天的建筑设计机构对于云计算的使用开始不再限于文件共享和储存。无论方案设计还是运用BIM(建筑信息模型)进行项目管理，或是效果图或者能耗分析等外包任务，主要依赖企业服务器的日子正快速消失。为了竞争和交付最佳项目，建筑师们正走向云端。
建模：
对于职员分散在不同办事处的公司，或者涉及多重业务的合伙企业，在云中放置三维模型是理所当然的。“我们的运作方式使得我们不得不到那里（云），”Nick Cameron说，他是美国建筑协会会员、成立于纽约州尼亚加拉瀑布城的CannonDesign公司副主席，该公司现在在全球很多城市有办公室。“如果你在分散的团队工作，在云端有一个集中模型是第一位的，来回传输模型的方式对于回应客户的需求来说还不够快。云系统允许我们在任一办公室实时协作。”Cameron 说，CannonDesign公司依赖于自己私有的托管在非现场数据中心里的云服务器，但是由诸如亚马逊公司托管的半私有的云服务器能够达到类似的效果。
项目和内容管理：
尽管BIM软件自身就是个工具，可以用一个模型整合建筑师、建筑商、工程师和其他分包商的工作。“如果你们是钢结构制造商，你们没有用Revit工作，就得有人把它转换出来。从设计的角度转换到制造商或工程师的角度，仍是一个非常不连贯的过程。”Dennis Shelden说。他是洛杉矶Gehry科技公司的首席技术官，洛杉矶Gehry科技公司是美国建筑协会资深会员Frank Gehry旗下子公司，最近被Trimble公司收购。
Trimble Connect软件（Trimble对个人用户账号免费，对机构有不同的价格），以前作为GTeam平台被人所知，由Gehry科技公司设计，允许建筑团队成员通过一个软件平台组合文件管理和BIM可视模型以及信息传递来连接和协作。Shelden说：“信息都在那里，允许不同部门对在不同产品中所体现的同组信息进行处理。”
象Unifi这样的 软件（Inviewlabs,每月费用10美元到19美元 ）也能帮助建筑师更好地访问他们的数据库。“这是一个能轻易收回投资的项目，”Lauren Collier在谈到她公司使用Unifi时说，她是美国建筑师协会非正式会员，俄亥俄州SSOE集团Toledo设计技术部主管。“我能验证几乎基于每个用户成本的搜索效率。你并不是每天使用Unifi，而是在需要登录和收集条目时使用它。以前搜索一个条目需要三分钟，现在只需五秒。”
透视图
云计算也让像生成效果图之类以前在内部进行的耗时的工作以能够迅速取得成果的外包方式进行。比如旧金山的Gensler公司使用Nvidia Iray和Migenius的 RealityServer（价格不同）将设计发送给非现场GPU（图像处理单元）集群，能够在几分钟内取得结果，而不是几小时。“在难以置信的短时间产生难以置信的结果，”Gensler总裁及美国建筑师协会会员Ken Sanders说，“当以很高的逼真度模拟光线时，我们不仅能做逼真的效果图，还能做复杂的采光分析。这些复杂的过程能够在几秒或几分钟内完成，而无需整夜计算。”
CannonDesign公司的Cameron也推荐了第三方供应商Rendercore (提供0.20美元到0.35美元每核心小时的使用)，能作为Revit插件提供效果图。Cameron说：“我们需要这样的效率来共享那些模型，卸载某些紧张的进程就是大势所趋。”
绩效分析：云也允许能量阵列，建立能从任何地方访问的绩效分析工具。例如俄勒冈波特兰的设计技术主管，ZGF建筑师Trevor Taylor使用Autodesk的Flow Design（35美元每月或210美元每年）“来研究主导风向如何影响场地设计。在一个用Revit或SketchUp建立的模型中，Flow Design在早期的设计中执行找形分析一直非常有用。”软件开发者的云协作平台Autodesk A360主持这个模型。
Amy Leedham是美国建筑师协会非正式会员，洛杉矶EHDD公司设计师，她使用Sefaira软件作为Revit 的插件来估计项目能耗。她解释说：“我们在这个过程的很早就使用它-甚至在工程师提出之前--在概念设计阶段帮助我们做出体量、朝向和玻璃幕墙等方面的重大决定。云之所以吸引人是因为当你改变参数时你能够更快得到结果•••检验你的想法并把它塑造成我们想要的那样。它帮助我们显著减少相当比例的能耗。”
Architecture firms today are starting to use the cloud for more than just file sharing and storage. Whether it’s schematic design or project management with BIM, outsourced tasks such as rendering, or energy performance analysis, the days of relying primarily on company servers are quickly disappearing. To compete for and deliver the best projects, architects are taking to the virtual skies.
Modeling
For firms with staff members scattered across multiple offices, or partnerships involving multiple practices, it’s natural to put a 3D model in the cloud. “We had to go there because of how we operate,” says Nick Cameron, AIA, vice president of CannonDesign, which was founded in Niagara Falls, N.Y., and now has offices in cities around the globe. “If you’re working on a dispersed team, having a centralized model in the cloud is number one. This idea of shipping models back and forth isn’t fast enough for how we need to react to clients. A cloud-based system allows us to collaborate in real time in any of our offices.” CannonDesign relies on its own privately hosted cloud in an off-site data center, Cameron says, but semi-private clouds hosted by companies such as Amazon can achieve a similar result.
Project and Content Management
Although BIM software is itself a tool for uniting the efforts of architects, builders, engineers, and other subcontractors with one model, “if you’re a structural steel fabricator, you’re not working in Revit,” says Dennis Shelden, chief technology officer of Los Angeles–based Gehry Technologies, the offshoot of Frank Gehry, FAIA’s firm that was recently acquired by Trimble. “Somebody still has to translate it out. It’s still a very disconnected process from the design view to the fabricator or engineering view.”
Trimble Connect software (Trimble, free for single-user accounts and varied pricing for organizations), formerly known as GTeam and designed by Gehry Technologies, allows building team members to connect and collaborate via one software platform by combining file management, BIM model viewing, and messaging. “The info’s all there to allow different parties to work on the same set of information expressed in different products,” Shelden says.
Software like Unifi (Inviewlabs, $10 to $19 per month) can also help architects better access their data libraries. “It was a really easy return on investment case,” says Lauren Collier, Assoc. AIA, design technology section manager of Toledo, Ohio–based SSOE Group, of her firm’s use of Unifi. “I could prove a search efficiency pretty much at a per-user cost. You don’t use Unifi every day. You use it when you need to load in and harvest items. Before, it could take three minutes to search for an item. Now it takes five seconds.”
Rendering
Cloud computing also allows time-consuming tasks previously performed in-house, such as generating renderings, to be outsourced in a way that expedites delivery. San Francisco–based Gensler, for example, uses Nvidia Iray paired with Migenius’s RealityServer (pricing varies) to send designs to a cluster of GPUs (graphics processing units) off-site that can be received back within minutes instead of hours. “It produces incredible results in an incredibly short time,” says Gensler managing director Ken Sanders, FAIA. “We can do not just photorealistic renderings but these complex daylighting analyses where you’re simulating light with very high fidelity. You can turn those around in seconds or minutes rather than taking all night to compute.”
CannonDesign’s Cameron also recommends Rendercore (offered at $0.20 to $0.35 per core hour of usage), a third-party provider that can deliver renderings as a Revit plugin. “We need that efficiency to share those models,” he says. “Offloading some of these intensive processes is the future.”
Performance Analysis
The cloud also allows for an array of energy and building performance analysis tools that can be accessed from any location. For example, Trevor Taylor, design technology manager at Portland, Ore.–based ZGF Architects, makes use of Autodesk’s Flow Design ($35 per month or $210 per year) “to study how the predominating winds might influence site design. Flow Design has been most useful for form-finding exercises during early design, in a model that might come from Revit or from SketchUp.” Autodesk A360, the software developer’s cloud-based collaboration platform, hosts the model.
Amy Leedham, Assoc. AIA, a designer at San Francisco–based firm EHDD, uses Sefaira to estimate a project’s energy consumption as a Revit plugin. “We use it very early in the process—even before an engineer has been brought on—with conceptual design to help make big-picture decisions about massing, orientation, and glazing,” she explains. “And the cloud was appealing because you could get results more quickly as you change parameters … test your ideas, and shape it into what we wanted to be. It helps us reduce energy by a pretty significant percentage.”
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