Charles M. Eastman

Charles (Chuck) M. Eastman (May 5, 1940 – November 9, 2020) was a professor and a pioneer in the areas of design cognition, building information modeling (BIM), solid and parametric modeling, engineering databases, product models, and interoperability. He is best known for his work on building description system, which later gave him a title as the 'father of BIM.'
Biography.
Eastman is a pioneer of computer-aided design for the architecture, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) industry, developing research 3D and early solid and parametric modeling systems for the building industry starting in the mid-1970s. Trained as an architect at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, he focused on tool development for practitioners with the 'building description system (BDS)' and 'Building Product Modeling,' later re-branded as 'Building Information Modeling (BIM).' He was a founder of ACADIA (the Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture) and CIB W78 Information Technology for Construction. CIB W78 created the Charles M. Eastman Top Ph.D. Paper Award in his honor. He served as an editorial board member of major journals including Research in Engineering Design, Automation in Construction, Computer-Aided Design, Design Studies, and Journal of Information Technology in Construction.
He taught briefly at the University of Wisconsin and, then, at Carnegie-Mellon University (1967-1982), UCLA (1987-1995), and Georgia Tech (1996-2018). In 1969, he published the paper "Cognitive processes and ill-defined problems: A case study from design", which is regarded as the first paper in the area of design cognition. At Carnegie Mellon University, he was jointly appointed a professor of the faculty of architecture and the faculty of the School of Public Policy (the Heinz School). He started the PhD program in Architecture there. He founded a parametric modeling start-up (called Formtek) in 1982 and sold the company to Lockheed Martin in 1987 before he joined University of California, Los Angeles, where he was for eight years. In 1996, he moved to Georgia Tech and worked there as a professor in the Colleges of Design and Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology and the director of the Georgia Tech Digital Building Lab (DBL) until his retirement in 2018.
His research group at Georgia Tech worked with industry groups to develop new generation parametric modeling tools including Tekla Structures and the courthouse BIM tools, and BIM exchange standards including improved IFC semantic foundations. His research partners included the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, the Charles Pankow Foundation, General Services Administration (GSA), the American Institute of Steel Construction, the American Concrete Institute, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.