It is almost unbelievable what your whole team has orchestrated. Your BIMstorm exceeds anything one person can even imagine.

If I could give you all something to show thanks for your wake-up call to the international building industry, I would not give you a wake-up call - I would give you 8 hours of deep sleep.

Since I can't do that, I hope you don't mind if I start a Thank You Thread.

With heart-felt appreciation for the historic efforts you have made,

Mike

Mike Bordenaro

On behalf of Team H (orcutt | winslow) I'll second that. Kimon and his team have opened my eyes to the possibilities of true collaboration, outside of the desktop BIM tools that we have grown so comfortable with and into the world of information sharing. They have illuminated a path to interoperability with a much broader group of participants and disciplines than I ever could have imagined - by starting with simple, yet powerful pieces of shared structured data. I can now understand clearly the power of archiving projects and client standards in this way for future use in our architecture practice. Thanks Onuma Inc. for keeping the juices flowing!

Russ Sanders, AIA

Russ

Thanks for the great quote. I am going to paste it right now in the AIA BIM Award submittal. It has been a fun and tiring day.

Kimon

My BIM world intersected with Kimon's and many others who were working on NBIMS back in December 2006. My mind was opened to a new realization, and Kimon was leading the way as a practioner with OPS. He was getting it done. What I learned then was BIM isn't a tool, it's a process. It was great fun to have been given the opportunity to participate in the process and become "Experienced". Team K (DeStefano and Partners Chicago/LA) thanks Kimon and Yong and everyone at Onuma Inc. It was an honor to take part in this historic event.

Tim

Timothy Blatner, AIA

To Kmon and the ONUMA team:

Special thanks again for this awesome experience. You are to be highly commended!

Best regards,
Karen

Karen L. Weber
Earth Our Only Home, Inc.

An open letter from Terry Mackprang, president of familia Corazón, the non-profit home building organization that built a home for Don Juanito and his family in conjunction with the LA BIMstorm™.

Mike,

When you called me about Corazón be a part of the LA BIMstorm™, I was, to say the least, skeptical. There was so little time, so much work to do and the weather was just awful. But then we had our first conference and when I understood the quality people who were participating and their dedication and resourcefulness, I realized that we could and should make this happen. The people in Mexico made an heroic effort and poured the concrete, gathered the materials and made it happen.

That’s the part of the story that is most readily apparent. But there was much more at work—something almost supernatural about the way this came together for Corazón. While it was exciting to be part of something remarkable in the LA BIMStorm project, it also validated and reinforced the essence of the familia program. We did not have time to find a new home site close enough to the Corazón offices that would enable us to send off progress photos during the day but one of our most diligent volunteers and one of the construction class teachers, Don Juanito, had a ramshackle shelter he has cobbled together over the years that just might work. It is on a hillside with difficult access and it was small, about 12’ x 16’ but it was close to the office and there was no more deserving a family that Don Juanito’s. In less than a week, often in the rain and mud, the community rallied around and tore down the existing shack, enlarged the existing slab to 16’ x 20’ and gathered all of the materials.

Now came the interesting part—who would build this on a Thursday with a couple of days notice? My wife and firefighter son were coming down, as were the Executive Director of Corazón in the US, Maria. We figured we could draft our staff in Mexico as well as some of our interns and we would do the best we could. So our staff in put out the word about the project and who it was for. We arrived on site about 7:30. There were already about 25 of the locals, most graduates from our construction class, at the job site and more were on their way. The people in Tecate, about an two hour drive away also wanted to be included, and Corazón dispatched our van to pick them up and bring them to Tijuana. The community had come together to support of their own. In the end, we had over 40 of the local participants show up to build a house for their neighbor.

With one of our typical American groups, we have the roof framed and the walls up by noon and the house completed by about 4:30. Don Juanito’s neighbors had the walls up and the loft built by 10:00, the roof on and sheathed by 11:00 and the house complete a little after 2:00. The most notable feature of all of the volunteers was their wide smiles. This was not a group performing a chore or a duty, this was a group of friends engaged in a labor of love—like an old fashioned barn raising.

The whole idea behind the familia Corazón program is better communities and families through a sense of community—one neighbor being able to trust and rely on another neighbor. In 1995 when we started the program, it seemed like an impossible dream. The communities we had been working in for the previous 17 years were a fragmented and disparate group of people from all over Mexico and Central America. No one even knew their neighbor much less have any belief they could rely on them for any sense of help or support. Little by little we chipped away at that and the strangers became acquaintances and the acquaintances became friends and the friends began to trust one another. A real sense of community began to spring up amidst the poverty and hardship of everyday life in Tijuana.

One of our Corazón traditions is to present the keys to their new house to the owners. We remind the group that for most of the recipients, this is the first time they have ever had a key. This is the first time they were able to lock their doors and secure themselves and their possessions. During the presentation, we explained that this house was a complete surprise. It literally came from the sky. In Spanish, the word “cielo” has two meanings. The common meaning is “sky” but it also means “heaven.” When you consider the importance of Google Earth in the BIMStorm, the terms such as “landing a house” on the LA project, we told the group that this house from “el cielo” landed on Don Juanito and his family. The full connotation of that may have escaped the locals gathered around but it was not lost on all of us who realized what a miracle and blessing this was for the family that is Corazón.

On behalf of familia Corazón, I want to thank you for including us in this historic project. Your team has accomplished more than you could ever imagine.

Terry

Terry Mackprang
TEMAK Construction
714.963.0097 Office
949.295.4141 Cell
temak@mac.com

This charrette has been a historic moment! Master Planning will never be the same.
Thank you Kimon and ONUMA team.
(Special thank you for Ryan Ghere support)

Ulises Araujo
Charles Good-Man
IRWIN-PANCAKE ARCHITECTS

Terry

Thank you Terry for having Corazón be a part of the LA BIMStorm and for your letter. I am glad you were able to accomplish so much in a short time and I also congratulate Corazón for having the only physical built structure in this large pool of virtual buildings in the BIMStorm.

Thank you Mike and all who helped on the Corazón project.

Take a look at the new image posted here:

http://www.onuma.com/services/LaStorm.php

These are all the buildings submitted to the BIMstorm, laid out flat like tiles, with their actual square footage. The other image, they are stacked small on the bottom: 450 sf, to large on top Millions of sf. Note the thin vertical line at the bottom of the pyramid. These are the Corazon units at 450 sf each, and first in line "to physically land" on earth.

Thanks for having an impact.

Kimon