Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa June 2016 | Page 46

ARCHITECTURE

Local Architecture

Set For Significant Changes
BY REBECCA JONES

T

he South African architectural industry is
changing so radically and with such speed
that current business practices will be
virtually unrecognisable a decade from now.
In a sector that is primarily concerned with the
sharing of information and ideas, the mediums for
doing so have already cycled through rapid revolutions.
Pencils and erasers have become electronic digital
bits and the ideas they are able convey have, in
consequence, also undergone significant changes.
The future will involve 3D printers working from 3D
virtual drawing programs that integrate a number of
participants interfacing on a real-time basis.
Garth Hamilton, the new managing director of
SVA, said “digital integration” would be the definitive
driving force behind the new era of architecture and
building practice in South Africa. “We anticipate that
the changes in our industry and especially the means
of production which defined recent years are just the
start. The next ten years will usher in a new and more
radical revolution.
While innovations so far have fundamentally
changed the collaborations that underpinned the
industry, the demands of the future – among these
being fast urbanising cities, increasing socioeconomic volatility, the changing nature of publicprivate ownership, new financial models and systems,
artificial intelligence, global manufacturing and space
travel – all present scenarios that offer new challenges
and opportunities that will add further dynamism to
change in our business.
The recent introduction of the A360 Collaboration
for Revit software on a national level has ushered
in a new era in building information modelling by
allowing multiple users to work on BIMs in a live,
cloud-based environment. Essentially the software
allows for