BIM’s Bold Promise
Building Information Modeling (BIM) was envisioned in the late 20th century as a revolutionary way to centralize design, construction, and operation data. Its roots trace back to the 1970s with Charles Eastman’s concept of the “Building Description System.” By the 1990s, major software players had transformed that vision into practical tools. BIM promised efficiency, collaboration, and accuracy across the building lifecycle. It was a digital twin before the phrase even existed.
Title Photo by Brendan Church on Unsplash
How Giants Took Over
As BIM matured, a handful of software giants consolidated control of the market. Their platforms became the default, locking architects, engineers, and contractors into ecosystems that favored revenue streams over real innovation. Out of this came the demand for a universal file format that would allow competing platforms to communicate.
IFC: The Great Equalizer?
The Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) format was designed as a neutral, open standard for interoperability. In theory, it let a Revit file talk to ArchiCAD, Tekla, or Bentley. IFC became the lifeline for collaboration in a fragmented industry where no single software could or should dominate.
Where IFC Falls Short
But IFC has never lived up to its promise. Data loss during translation is common. Geometry breaks, metadata disappears, and parametric relationships flatten into “dumb” objects. What was supposed to unite the industry often feels like a compromise. Today the question is unavoidable: is IFC still a gift, or has it become a hurdle?
Why Change Feels Impossible
Construction is famously resistant to change. “Standards” often become an excuse for inertia. Software companies exploit this conservatism, rolling out the same tools year after year with new version numbers, tighter subscription models, and only minor tweaks. Everyone complains, but the cycle continues because disruption makes the industry uncomfortable.
The Case for a New Standard
What the industry really needs is not another patch to IFC but a fresh start. Imagine a format as lightweight as code.
- Version-controlled like Git commits
- Built for automation and parametric workflows
- Ready for advanced assembly data, even G-code for 3D printing
Such openness would not just support collaboration but truly future-proof the industry.
How Startups Get Stuck
Startups know this too well. Tools like Snaptrude and others with promising approaches are forced by clients to maintain IFC compatibility. It is a practical necessity because interoperability is non-negotiable. But it keeps even the most innovative companies tied to legacy standards. The transition is always called “necessary,” but in reality, it drags the future backward.
A Bright Spot: BlenderBIM
One project feels closer to what the future should look like: BlenderBIM. It is open, supports parametric design through geometry nodes, and is scriptable in Python, offering a potential bridge for Revit script migrations. And yes, it already supports IFC.
Still, BlenderBIM has a major gap. It cannot yet generate construction-ready sheets. Conceptual design is only about 15 percent of the building lifecycle. The industry needs usable drawings as the final deliverable, not just pretty models. Until startups focus on producing those sheets, they will remain tools for the early stage rather than the whole process.
Why Open Formats Matter
A non-proprietary format would do more than improve workflows. It could change the industry.
Streamlined efficiency. No more export/import gymnastics. Fewer wasted hours fixing broken models.
Smarter workflows. Open standards allow AI and machine learning to enhance compliance checking, automate code reviews, improve facility management, and even propose optimized design solutions.
This is not just about drawings. It is about unlocking new ways to design, manage, and build.
Breaking the Bottleneck
There is hope, but only if the industry is willing to loosen its grip on the past. Without a real push toward open, future-ready standards, BIM will remain stuck in cycles of subscription fatigue, incremental updates, and lost potential. The bottleneck is not technological. It is cultural.
And if nobody is going to build it, I might give it a shot, or at least donate to the amazing devs over at BlenderBIM.