Carl Galioto, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s partner-in-charge of the firm’s New York Technical Group, and Paul Seletsky, SOM’s director of digital design, are two of the architecture profession’s leading experts on BIM: building information modeling (also commonly referred to as virtual design and construction).

The pair discuss how BIM facilitated a major redesign of the Freedom Tower; assess the technology’s strategic impact on the profession; address common misperceptions; explain BIM’s potential benefits for smaller practices; point out how BIM can lead to increased compensation for architects; and lay out the potential ramifications of BIM—both positive and negative—on the architect’s overall role in the realization of buildings (“I believe this moment is a very critical hinge in the history of the practice of architecture—and that architects do have the ability to take a much greater responsibility in the implementation of their designs”).