Can BIM Bring Back Beauty?

In his video "How This Blue Paper Changed the World," Stewart Hicks unpacks how the invention of blueprinting revolutionized architecture. Blueprints made it faster and cheaper to copy drawings—but that convenience came with a price. The photochemical process inverted images, removed color and shading, and forced architects to adopt a new language of abstraction: technical diagrams, not evocative illustrations. Over time, this visual simplification shaped the buildings themselves. Forms became flatter, standardized, and easier to replicate. In other words, technology didn't just change how buildings were made—it changed how they looked.

Which leads to a provocative question for our time: how does BIM (Building Information Modeling) influence what buildings look like?

From Blueprint to BIM

BIM is often celebrated for what it brings to the table: coordination, clash detection, quantity take-offs, smart scheduling, and so on. But just like blueprinting, it also comes with constraints—ones that may be shaping architecture in invisible ways. While BIM offers digital precision, it also demands a high level of modeling effort for anything non-standard. Complex curves, unique materials, or experimental forms can be tedious to model, detail, and coordinate. So even with parametric power, there's often an implicit pressure toward what's already in the content library.

Ironically, where blueprinting made copying easy, BIM sometimes makes originality hard. Designers may avoid complexity not for cost reasons, but because the tools themselves make innovation more difficult to document or simulate. We risk ending up with the same aesthetic flattening—repetition, boxiness, predictability—that blueprinting once introduced.

But There Is Hope

Unlike blueprints, BIM is not just a visual tool—it's a data environment. That opens up new possibilities. A BIM object can contain material performance, cost, carbon data, acoustics, and even aesthetics. Tools like generative design and AI-assisted modeling are just beginning to tap into this potential. Beauty can be calculated, optimized, and simulated.

We now have the opportunity to reconnect design intent with craft. Fabrication-aware modeling, digital twins, and immersive visualization can bridge the gap between the designer's vision and the builder's execution. Instead of simplifying for the sake of copying, we can now complexify for the sake of meaning—as long as the digital tools are set up to support it.

Furthermore, Stewart points out that blueprints enabled different trades—plumbers, electricians, masons—to coordinate effectively for the first time. BIM takes that coordination to the next level by enabling dynamic, real-time collaboration across disciplines. And openBIM—with its emphasis on open standards and interoperability—is almost a necessity for making that collaboration effective. It ensures that all stakeholders, regardless of the software they use, can contribute, access, and act on the same building information.

The Challenge

The key is governance and intentionality. If BIM is only used to reduce risk, drive cost efficiency, and manage schedules, we may continue down the path of bland uniformity. But if we embrace BIM as a tool for artistic control, material expression, and human-centered design, then maybe—just maybe—we can bring beauty back.

The blueprint reshaped architecture by what it removed. BIM can reshape architecture by what it enables. Let’s not miss that chance.