Machines Pensantes

Now that building information modeling (BIM) has been firmly established in the AEC industry for the design, construction, and operation of individual buildings, and infrastructure modeling (also referred to as “BIM for infrastructure”) is starting to gain some traction for the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure (see the AECbytes archived article, “Extending BIM to Infrastructure”), we are also seeing some movement towards applying the intelligent modeling concept to the next broader level of human habitation, the city. While there is no agreed-upon terminology yet to refer to the concept of modeling cities, we will refer to it here as “city information modeling” or CIM.