Architect & Designers ICF Toolkit
March 2nd, 2010 | Marketing
ICF Marketing Support
Thought I take a post to announce a newly created brochure that is now available. This brochure, has been created to show our company history, major product lines, highlight benefits of ICFs, showcase a few projects and most importantly declares our pledge as the industry’s best in customer support- from conception of the ICF project until the walls are completed.
Too often we sell ourselves short on our service and support, however with current tough times and the better times ahead, its the innovation and service that will define our industry. Reward has a corporate office with sales and product delivery support, regional sales managers, marketing personnel, technical specialists (remember Darryl U?) and an engineer on staff- all which are corporately employed.
See here our new Toolkit for Designers and Architects to help communicate the benefits of Reward and insulating concrete forms.
Click to launch the full edition in a new window
BIM Design with Reward Insulated Concrete Forms
July 9th, 2009 | Unique Trends
From paper and pencil to AutoCAD to BIM, this is the evolution of building design community. BIM (Building Information Modeling) is quickly becoming the design tool of choice. The building is designed in 3D and is a virtual design. Not only is BIM useful for creating drawings of the building and its components, but also for embedding information, simulation and visualization of the building. That is the core difference: “I” stands for “Information.”
While there are a few different software packages that can design to BIM, Revit is by far the leading software available for designing parametric BIM objects. All the building components, from the steel supports to the windows units to the grain of the wood trim, are drawn using Revit software. Also you can place cranes and pumps in the drawing when coordinating work schedules etc. Once the BIM objects are created, building plans and drawings are quickly and efficiently drawn. And of COURSE our wall sections and insulating concrete forms are now part of the BIM world! (Product Manual Login required)
For walls designed with BIM, a wall segment is an object whose length, height, thickness, location, orientation, and material composition are included in the model, and have repeating details, so you can take and drag the wall the length you need, and will collate all the information automatically. It is also easy to conduct take-offs with BIM.
The companies that have embraced BIM have benefited in the design, construction and operation of the project. BIM is an integrated design solution. BIM integrates the building components in 3D along with associated data.
Each BIM object can have data attributed to it. By having the data for each building component at the finger tips of the designer, it saves them valuable research time. Examples of this may include R-value, CSI specifications, LEED information, costing data, and design notes.
The ideal situation is to have both the design (architect and structural engineer) and construction entities using BIM. If the companies are able to accurately control costs, quality and schedule, they can use their resources more effectively.
Some use the term designing to 4D with BIM. The 4D element is time –the length of time of construction process – including the sequence and timeliness of each element of the building. For example, if a building design had duct work designed in a certain location that would interfere with another building component, BIM would avoid the time and expense by having to re-construct something to make the duct-work work. Instead this issue could be found prior to construction.
Some jurisdictions are starting to require BIM design for their building projects. A couple examples include the state of Wisconsin and GSA.
BIM is new to us and our industry, which is why we were first in offering our products as. BIM models. We are continuing to learn about the technology and especially how it applies to making buildings energy efficient and more sustainable.
Take advantage of and access Reward’s free parametric ICF BIM objects
Reward Wall Systems has prepared and provided BIM objects in Revit. By providing the objects to the architect or designer, it saves them valuable design time as the wall sections and product details are already drawn. The designer can then just choose which wall section or product detail and begin creating plan, elevation and detail section drawings of the building.
Along with the objects, data associated with the Reward ICF wall is made available with each object…obviously or it wouldn’t be Building INFORMATION Modeling, it would be just Building Modeling.
The Reward BIM Revit objects can be found at the following locations.
- Reward BIM Object Library > Will have to register or sign in to view
- SmartBIM Library
- SmartBuilding Index
- Autodesk Seek
The New Standard of Sustainability. Tell the World.
Sustainable Design Conference Recap
June 23rd, 2009 | From the Field
On May 19th, Cemstone Products Co and Reward hosted our first ever Sustainable Design Conference in Burnsville, MN, in order to educate the surrounding community of architects and building designers/planners on using insulating concrete forms (ICFs) to maintain the new green building standards of design. There is much buzz on that topic, so luckily I do not have to elaborate as one could turn on the TV or swing by YouTube to see what that the future of design is focused on building green. The event took place at the CineMagic Atlantis 15 Theater, which was constructed with ICFs.
CineMagic Atlantis 15 - Click to see project profile
For the conference we hosted a few professionals of the likes of Donn Thompson, the acting Director of the PCA; Richard Rue, previously from NASA and current founder of EnergyWise Structures; and Arol Wolford, from REED Construction Data, who’s visionary status pegged him as the pioneer of Building Information Modeling (BIM). For all of the sessions that day there were 6 AIA HSW and SD credits available for AIA members.
- Attendees in Theater
Architects and Designers at Lunch
We had a very solid turnout with local and regional designers ranging in scope and age and types of businesses. We had some outside vendors come in as well in support of Cemstone. Questions and answers were exchanged throughout the day on design methods, detail drawings, contributing to LEED credits, and the future of design with BIM…Yes, our ICF Revit models are available now! (shameless plug)
We’ve done our best to try to post a few videos on our YouTube channel, from this conference to share a few excerpts from each speaker, as there were 6 hours of conference and no one wants to sit through ALL of that. If you do, please contact us as I’m sure I can arrange it. So, it’ll take some time to get through all of the info and speakers to share with you, so check back often.
Do you have a large audience of Architects, Design/Build Firms, or Designer in general that would benefit from a conference in your area? Let us know! These take quite the effort to put on, but the information and conversations exchanged are extremely beneficial, so maybe your area could be next on the list.
Our insulating concrete form industry is still so young, yet is showing signs of explosion. The more people that are educated on the benefits of insulated concrete forms, green building, and Reward Wall Systems of course, the better. We are convinced the future is incredibly bright…so bright, make sure your glasses are tinted and polarized.
The New Standard of Sustainability. Tell the World.