The First Meeting - Part I

Between November 12 and 14, 2014, the city of Maceió hosted the XV Encontro Nacional de Tecnologia do Ambiente Construído, ENTAC 2014. The event, held every two years, is promoted by ANTAC, the Associação Nacional de Tecnologia do Ambiente Construído. It is one of the most important events in the country in this field, since it is where much of the new Brazilian scientific output (overwhelmingly Brazilian) related to built-environment technology is presented. So it stands to reason that, if there is new and interesting research on BIM, it is probably presented at ENTAC, and that is exactly why I registered to attend the event. Over the three days of the event there were numerous talks, panels, and posters presenting the most relevant work in our academic output on the subject. Besides attending the presentation sessions, most participants also take advantage of the event to catch up with acquaintances, make new contacts, and generally expand their network in the field, as one would expect at this kind of gathering. That was also one of the reasons that led me to go to ENTAC. Although 15 years have already passed since I graduated in Architecture and Urban Planning, I had never attended an event of this kind before, not even back in college. I remember, as a child, that my father, a physics researcher and professor, would take the whole family whenever he could to the SBPC (Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência) meetings, where we would help set up the "toys" in the labs so that my father and his students could give their demonstrations. It was only much later that I understood how amazing it was to be in an environment with that many people coming together to debate, discuss, study, and learn. In a way, I had the same feeling right after attending this event. Well, but was the event productive? And was BIM discussed there? How much? How? To answer these questions, I realized I would need two lines of analysis. In the first, the idea is to mention the presentations I attended and found relevant for one reason or another; given the size of the event, it is obvious that there may have been extremely interesting presentations that I did not see, so it would be incorrect to say that I selected the best of what the event had to offer. In the second, based on the data found in the ENTAC proceedings, I mapped out some of the information available there, with the goal of answering, statistically, how the topic of BIM fits into contemporary Brazilian scientific output (within the scope of this event, of course). I think you can already tell this post turned into more than two parts, right? Here is the first part of my analysis. I'll close this post with a photo of the excellent view from the hotel where the event was held!

PS: Whenever I write, I'm listening to something. Today, one of the songs was Helicopter, by Bloc Party. Check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvNrsuieMLs