SOM’s Brian DeYoung on breaking spatial barriers and scaling complex airport coordination
Client overview
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is a globally renowned collective of architects, designers, engineers, and planners dedicated to building a better future. Named No. 1 on Architizer's list of "Best Architecture and Design Firms in the United States," the firm is celebrated for shaping iconic city skylines and designing some of the world's most complex transportation and aviation terminals.
Putting multi-disciplinary models into everyone's hands
Brian DeYoung, Associate Principal Architect and BIM Lead at SOM, understands the immense pressure of coordinating highly complex civic structures. When evaluating project workflows, SOM required a centralized system capable of supporting all core coordination functions—including comprehensive communication, spatial collaboration, and automated clash detection—within an environment intuitive enough for a diverse ecosystem of project teams, clients, and trade partners.
“I think one of the key benefits is just more model engagement. People that normally wouldn't touch a 3D model are using a 3D model because of Revizto, because it is much more accessible.”
Brian DeYoung, Associate Principal Architect - BIM Lead, SOM
Implementing new design technology can frequently cause project friction, but SOM’s transition was exceptionally smooth. By pre-configuring organizational structures like stamp templates and issue tracking channels, the firm established an unbreakable foundation that streamlined employee training. Instead of subjecting practitioners to intense multi-day software seminars, teams comfortably mastered the workspace in single, focused one-hour training sessions.
This rapid user proficiency has directly optimized model engagement across the board. The platform's raw file performance allows the team to open an entire multi-million-square-foot airport terminal model in mere minutes. This instantaneous accessibility has dismantled traditional technical barriers, allowing non-BIM specialists, external general contractors, and owners to easily participate in live model walkthroughs and verify spatial logistics safely together.
Brian’s top Revizto features:
FAQs
When working on massive civic infrastructure like airport terminals, standard architectural files become so heavy that they require elite computers to load, inadvertently gatekeeping the data from owners and field teams. Revizto's high-performance architecture opens complete, large-scale projects in a few minutes on standard devices. Removing loading friction changes user habits—encouraging practitioners who typically avoid 3D files to actively explore and engage with spatial information.
Onboarding bottlenecks usually happen because teams are forced to adjust to a vendor's rigid database rules. By establishing pre-configured stamps, status flows, and coordination criteria behind the scenes, you eliminate the learning curve. Because the end-user interface functions as a clear visual hub, a basic one-hour overview is all team members need to navigate fluidly, locate flaws, and record context.
During a pre-construction review, contractors must rapidly identify how contract drawings correspond to physical structural space. The ability to instantly slice through 3D elements at any given point gives construction teams immediate spatial clarity. By superimposing the official 2D drawing directly on top of that section cut, teams can spot design inconsistencies instantly and verify constructibility together.
