So recently Dubai Municipality issued a new circular 207 related to BIM (details at the end of this post) , requiring consultants to use BIM on some categories, now this is where fun begins ! here are my notes on this period :

1- Basically we as BIM witches start receiving those panicking emails and inquires asking for "BIM". The same happened in 2013 when circular 196 was out. And oh boy do I enjoy those calls!

2- What keeps me amused is the fact that quite few of the consultants still think that BIM is an IT related task, so we still get calls from IT departments. And some (that I met as early as 2006) and made a decision to move to other BIM platforms, calling today again for help, because this "BIM thing" didn't work out well .

3- Now the interesting part that we are enjoying the most, when client that got plenty of Revit licenses in their offices, but really didn't manage to do much with it, when they insist on the fact that they have already "chosen" Revit as their BIM platform and they have even hired an expert, and yet we manage to meet them and show them what a little laptop with ARCHICAD can do.. Watching the "expert" is fun usually !

On a positive note regardless of what people are hearing in many cases that : "Oh the municipality is mandating Revit". We met the Municipality team and they were extremely clear that not at this point and never later they will ask for a specific software, BIM is what they are looking for and BIM is what they will require.

Main points of Circular 207 :

BIM is required for the following

1- Architectural / Mechanical for:

Buildings of +20 stories
Buildings of +200k SQFT,
Special buildings (Hospitals, universities..etc)
Governmental projects
Projects by foreign offices.

2- Structural for :

Buildings of +40 floors
Buildings of +300K SQFT
Special buildings (Hospitals, universities..etc) d-
Projects by foreign offices.

Dubai Municipality Circular 207

Hello world.. Again