The end of the year 2020, especially such an eventful year, makes us all reflect on the past 12 months. What has happened with us and what has happened with BIM Corner in 2020? We summarize the recent events and this time it will not be (only) about the BIM!
Table of contents
Number 1: How BIM Corner was founded?
There are many different stories about this crucial event, however, the official date of establishing BIM Corner can be assumed to the 13.03.2019. It was then that 6 engineers from Poland, from different companies, met at the central station in Oslo to get to know each other. It was actually never a plan to start something together. And the beginning was not promising: the restaurant where we intended to go into was full of people, with a long queue outside. So, we went for an Italian pizza instead of that – and the rest is history;-)
Number 2: Interesting facts
- In a little bit over one year, we got over 17 000 followers. And our articles have been read in 194 countries all around the World. That is mind-blowing! Should we start an Instagram account? 😉
- The top countries from where our blog is read are Poland, the USA, and Great Britain, followed by India, Norway, and Germany.
- After weeks of heated discussions, coding, and a few liters of coffee, our blog finally got a brand-new look during Summer this year. Quite fast change taking into consideration, that we had our first version just half a year before! However, our main goal was to organize the knowledge on the blog in such a way that YOU – the Reader – could easily find what you are looking for. The articles are divided into several categories, which makes it easier to browse through a given topic. We hope that it helped to navigate through the site and find relevant information!
- Apart from this, that we are already on Facebook and LinkedIN, in May this year we have established our channel on YouTube. Surprisingly with a name… BIM Corner:-) Check out our videos on BIM Corner’s channel on YouTube.
Number 3: The beginnings
The first published article was ‘Everything You Should Know About Basics of BIM Technology’ on 28.07.2019, followed by ‘Top 12 benefits of BIM technology – Why should I use BIM?’
With the first couple of articles, we wanted to show the principles of BIM to people who want to get to know this technology. And in fact, we had been a little bit tired of questions like ‘what is BIM and why should I use it?’ before. Having the articles ready, we could just refer to our site and the relevant topics:-)
Number 4: Changes in our professional lives
In our professional lives, there have been some major changes in 2020, and not only because we have all gone ‘on-line’ and ‘home-office’. The biggest things that happened are:
- Ignacy Łoziński has left the design office where he worked to focus solely on developing his own company.
- Marcin Pszczółka has finalized a transfer to come back, with new experiences, to Trimble company.
- Janusz Majcher has started working in one of the biggest design offices in Norway, Norconsult.
- Konrad Naborczyk has started working as a design manager in one of the biggest contractor companies in Scandinavia, Skanska.
- And the sixth one, Krzysztof Wojsław? He has gained his VDC certificate from Stanford and… More about him in point number 5 below!
Number 5: Prizes and recognitions
The year 2020 has been full of prizes and recognitions for us both as BIM Corner and individually. Apart from the official prizes, we receive as well a significant number of private messages and emails from all around the world, mostly with good feedback and words of support. We appreciate all of them!
Some highlights from 2020:
- Recently, Norwegian biggest AEC portal www.bygg.no has noticed BIM Corner and our job related to spreading the knowledge of BIM around the world, with an entire article about us.
- We have experienced that great things happen when BIM Corner cofounders work together, with two projects getting prestigious awards:
1) On Randselva bridge, where Konrad Naborczyk worked as a design manager for the main contractor and Krzysztof Wojsław was one of the lead designers, there was a high ambition to design and build the structure model-based and drawing-less. Something which had not been done in the world on such a huge bridge before. It paid off! Because… E16 Randselva Bridge project won the BIM GLOBAL AWARD and not just one award! It won 3 awards:
- The Best BIM Project in Scandinavia
- World`s best BIM Infrastructure Project
- World`s best BIM Project on the globe
2) Project Route E39, The Coastal Highway, in which Marcin Pszczolka and Ignacy Lozinski from Norconsult AS were involved, won the prestigious is the winner of the prestigious Autodesk AEC Excellence Awards in the infrastructure design category! Read the success story here!
- Individually, some of us were present at different conferences:
- Marcin Pszczółka made a presentation on InfraBIM about the BIM coordinator’s role on a small infrastructure project. At the same event, Krzysztof Wojsław talked about how parametric design is used during the design of bridges in Norway.
- Krzysztof made a presentation about parametric design on Den Kloke Teknologi in Oslo (English: the smart technology), which was chosen as the best presentation at that conference.
- Krzysztof presented also his knowledge at the Stanford University VDC information meeting.
- Marcin was also a guest of BIM Voice and INFRA Studio.
- Konrad Fugas had a lecture at Sopot College about Digital Management of the investment process.
- And again Krzysztof – he was named The Best Young Engineer in Norway! In his own words, some part of the prize is connected with the spreading of his specialized knowledge about parametric design on BIM Corner. We are very proud, that one of the founders of our blog got this high recognition! You can read the article (in Norwegian) here.
Number 6: Getting personal
Usually, we are pretending to be tough BIM engineers without any feelings, however in this special Christmas and New Year time, we can share a small part of our private lives as well;-) Yes, we have some private projects and normal life, even outside the BIM-World!
- Konrad Fugas – New barriers broken in sport, a new place for living in Oslo. Konrad F. has finished his first ½ Ironman in Gdynia in Poland, which took him roughly 5,5 hours. Pretty exhausting he admits. Konrad is a tough guy and engineer down to the bones – recently moved to a new apartment in Oslo that he renovates himself – can it be called ‘BIM on-site’? 😉
- Krzysztof Wojsław – He is young, handsome, intelligent, The Best Young Engineer in Norway… and taken😉 Biking strong together with Konrad Fugas, Krzysztof is doing great both in sport, private life and in his work/hobby: parametric design.
- Konrad Naborczyk – Running like never, both on trails and with new ideas. It is better not to ask how many kilometers he has run during a single training session (67 km as a matter of fact) and how many tabs he has opened in Chrome for ‘later reading’. Talking about reading, he reads a lot of books and is crazy enough to believe that one day he can… write his own 🙂
- Marcin Pszczółka – The Family Project Part I to begin in Spring 2021! Being involved in BIM-talks and conferences, Marcin will happily take up the parenting-challenge in 2021. As the engineer breaking ground with BIM in infrastructure projects, this man is a person full of ideas!
- Janusz Majcher – New Terrace, new Life! 🙂 Happy Dad, thanks to his wife we had a first professional photo session with a lot of fun – and a small party afterward! By the way, if you like our pictures, check out Kasia’s Instagram profile – highly recommended! And we are still waiting for the BIM model in LOD 500 of the Terrace, which he made (in reality) in his ‘free’ time. Will the as-built documentation have even better quality?😉
- Ignacy Łoziński – Took a huge step and had the courage to leave a well-paid position to start working on his own. Even though parenting takes a lot of time, he can still be hyper-effective and prepare a game-changer BIM Coordinator course! Soon you will hear of that!
Summary
We appreciate that we live and work in Norway, which is one of the most developed country when it comes to use of the BIM technology (9 reasons why Norway is THE BEST in BIM). We have gained a lot of recognition in a short time and we are grateful for all the feedback (+ and –), which helps us improve ourselves professionally and personally.
In the end, we are just 6 civil engineers from Poland, who spend their free time writing articles about BIM. We just share our experience and knowledge – as simple as that. And this is actually the best part of the whole story – one can do what one likes, as a hobby, without big expectations, and without any budget and get huge recognition for that from all around the World. And we truly believe that if we can do it, anyone can learn and benefit from using BIM technology!
We wish a happy New Year to all our dear readers!
The concept was right, the effort is admirable and you guys definitely have a synergy. Well done, with all the efforts and added the translation issues is notable. The quality has been fresh and exciting. Nice one.
Thank you for your kind feedback Pierre! Any tips for improvements that we can introduce on our site or in the articles?:-)