Columbia, Maryland, (January 31, 2008)--Nemetschek North America is co-sponsoring and participating in Onuma BIMStorm™ LAX, an international event involving a wide cross-section of building industry professionals to design—in real time—over 30 Los Angeles city blocks encompassing 30 million square feet. The event, which takes place Thursday, January 31, will demonstrate how new technology and processes can improve design. “Team V” will include members of Nemetschek North America’s integrated products group in Columbia, Maryland, collaborating with users from rojo Architecture in Tampa, Florida, and Shook Kelley, Inc., in Charlotte, North Carolina.


“We think of the BIMStorm events as ‘Rapid City Prototyping,’ using the Onuma Planning System to leverage industry-standard file formats for building information exchange (most notably IFC) in a graphic, collaborative environment,” says Robert Anderson, Nemetschek North America’s vice president of integrated products. “VectorWorks Architect’s broad support of current IFC file formats gives us the ability to participate fully in this visualization process.”

VectorWorks Architect 2008 currently ships with a level-one certified implementation of IFC export and import, including versions 2.0, 2x2, and 2x3. Using this capability and the unique space planning and 3D modeling tools included in VectorWorks Architect, “Team V” will be able to demonstrate VectorWorks as a valuable participant in a Building Information Modeling (BIM) workflow, from initial planning and schematic design to the exchange of design ideas in various open-standard formats. These ideas are then available to other BIMStorm participants for energy analysis, cost and lifecycle analysis, and to examine ideas in the larger context of the city of Los Angeles.


Believing that current design processes are inefficient when using traditional methods, Onuma, Inc., whose mission is simply “Revolutionize Architecture,” is coordinating this historic architectural technology event. Calling the concept “a Woodstock” for the building industry, Onuma’s BIMStorm creates a framework for putting the process into warp speed and maximizing the value of a design charrette. It incorporates the skills of worldwide teams in maximizing the “information” part of BIM.

Onuma announced plans to submit the entire BIMStorm LAX project and process to the 2008 AIA Technology in Architectural Practice (TAP) BIM Awards as the first-of-a-kind, real-time submittal to the BIM Awards.

Nemetschek North America is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Nemetschek Group. A global leader in design technologies, Nemetschek North America has been developing CAD software for the AEC, entertainment, landscape design, and manufacturing fields since 1985. VectorWorks, its flagship product, is one of the world's best-selling cross-platform CAD applications. VectorWorks Architect is an elegant architectural design program that offers cutting-edge BIM capabilities in one cost-effective, cross-platform program. For more information, visit www.nemetschek.net