Agenda
8:00 am Chair’s Opening Remarks
8:00 am Breakfast & Registration
8:05 am
Buy-In to Computational Design
8:10 am Creating the Technological Backbone to Develop More Engaging & Responsible Design
Synopsis
• Discussing the digital transformation that the AEC industry needs to make to address the primary challenges of the 21st century-built environment, and how you can place computational capabilities at the heart of that mission
• Positioning our firm to invest in the talent and capabilities of tomorrow: How are we working with academia to move the needle of what can be achieved with computational design, and what are we most excited about coming down the pipeline?
• Exploring the ways that becoming a digital native can enhance the integration of your firm with the broader AEC ecosystem and supply chain, enhancing your value for clients and partners alike
8:40 am Increasing Cultural Buy-In to computational Design to Enhance Business-Wide Adoption
Synopsis
• Reviewing successes and failures in implementing initiatives to improve buy-in to computational methods across various levels of seniority
• Assessing the role of mutual trust in the roadmap to firm-wide adoption: how can you play an active role in building this trust?
• Investigating how deeper understanding of cultural nuances between regional offices can change your approach to securing buy-in across the country
• Integrating an end-to-end cultural alignment throughout the firm
9:20 am Audience Discussion: Better Tracking ROI of Computational Design Applications to Boost Your Business Case for Investment to Senior Management
Synopsis
• Discussing the value of tracking adoption of specific applications to support your business case for further investment
• Developing a robust approach for consistently and accurately quantifying cost and payback estimations for new tools: How can you present this visually to make the data more easily accessible to senior leadership?
• Utilizing ROI calculations to support your conversations regarding increased resourcing with senior management and make them see that the investment in computational design shouldn’t just sit with your department
10:00 am Morning Refreshments & Speed Networking
Track 1:
Computational in Action
Track 2: Strategic Leadership & Development
Improving Revit
Functionality
Optimizing Team Structure & Capabilities
10:50 am Streamlining Complex Geometries & Data on End-toEnd Workflows to Improve & Expedite Design Development
Synopsis
• Ensuring designers adhere to rigorous design standards to ensure models are transfer ready
• Reviewing how much time and efficiency is lost in the current process for translating models from design to documentation
• Mapping out the end-to-end workflow required to increase interoperability across both platforms
• Exploring ways to make these workflows more accessible to end-users
11:30 am Software Development Best Practices: How to Build Custom Revit Add-Ins the Right Way
Synopsis
• Discussing how internal development groups that leverage textual code and Software Development best-practices can build tools that are more robust, maintainable, and scalable than traditional visual scripting tools
• Discussing how Automatic Testing and TDD (Test Driven Development) support scalable and bug free tool development
• Exploring the limitations of common C# Revit Addin development workflows and discuss why automatic testing and TDD is not widely practiced
• Explaining how Mocking, Stubs and Interfaces allow us to automatically test our Revit API code without launching Revit
10:50 am Creating a Culture Where Technology Teams Feel Empowered to Develop New Tools & Foster Organic Innovation
Synopsis
• Fostering a learning organization that can strengthen your computational capabilities and employee engagement
• Bringing in talent with the right skillset and attitude to help your technology team thrive: How can you make sure that your organization is attractive to emerging talent and is a place they want to stay and grow within?
• Building the digital infrastructure for people to organically engage with training and development, tracking their engagement and progress, and providing a platform for requesting further resources
11:30 am Leveraging AI & Other Strategies To Fill The Talent Gap In Your Firm’s Digital Transformation
Synopsis
• Assessing the potential for AI to assist in coding: Examining current efforts and whether there may be an opportunity to further this in the near future
• Augmenting traditional skills by rethinking technology’s role in delivering projects
• Exploring methods to enable AI integration with low code design platforms such as Grasshopper and Dynamo
12:10 pm Lunch Break
Integration Across Design & Construction
Developing In-House Applications
1:10 pm Communicating Engineering Design Value Externally Using Digital & Scaled Physical Models to Help Teams Select the Best Design Option
Synopsis
• Understanding the importance of communicating engineering design to external parties through digital models
• Examining the role of scaled physical models for design communication in real-world engineering projects
• Integrating digital and physical models and presenting successful case studies of this combined synergized approach to design communication to assist teams in selecting the best design option
1:50 pm Overcoming Barriers to Successful Collaborative Computational BIM Workflows
Synopsis
• Identifying the most common bottlenecks in cross-stakeholder collaboration for 3D modeling
• Understanding options for computational BIM workflows & data standardization
• Incorporating real-time interoperability using cloud-based platforms
• Creating benchmarking actions that can improve collaboration
2:30 pm Fireside Chat: Discussing the Potential for Digital Twin Development to Provide More Valuable Design Data to Clients
Synopsis
• Understanding the cost, development timeline and staff optimization required for digital twin creation
• Discussing how teams are tackling technological barriers to enable digital twin creation
• Assessing the role of computational design in producing higher quality digital twins
1:10 pm Building The Business Case for an In-House Software Development Team to Develop More Cost-Efficient, Custom Software
Synopsis
• Exploring the benefits of bringing development in-house
• Underlining the process and investment required to transform your team from a small group of specialists to a full department
• Examining long-term advantages of an in-house development team, such as monetizing solutions to further enhance buy-in from senior management
1:50 pm Evaluating the Most Effective Applications to Develop In-House to Maximize the Value of Your Team for the Organization
Synopsis
• Working with end-users to identify potential optimization opportunities in current design workflows
• Outlining the criteria for development: How can you determine which application is the right one to invest development capabilities into first?
• Discussing what to do if you discover an off-the-shelf solution midway through development: Continue or abort?
2:30 pm Establishing a Process to Build More Scalable Tools with the Flexibility to be Leveraged by Multiple Project Teams
Synopsis
• Highlighting how teams can build computational scripts with the ability to become flexible from the outset
• Building an excellent user interface to make interaction with the tool easy for a variety of non-technical personnel
• Mapping out a planning, implementation, and improvement process for the roll-out of scalable tools to a wider user base
3:10 pm Afternoon Refreshments
3:15 pm
Empowering End-Users
3:50 pm Equipping Architects with the Knowledge & Skillset Required to Effectively Harness Computational Methods in Their Day-To-Day Workflows
Synopsis
• Determining what the term ‘computational thinker’ means for architects and the training required to get there
• Developing a baseline understanding of the opportunities for computational building design with middle-management to benefit their teams to get their buy-in to additional training
• Developing a robust yet easily adoptable training program to make end-users more computationally adept, without adding significant workload to an already ‘full plate’
4:30 pm Combatting Tool & Process Fatigue to Maintain Adoption & Innovation with Computational Applications
Synopsis
• Balancing the decision of when to update software, considering the potential downside of tool fatigue
• Best practices for testing the functionality of scripts after software updates to reduce failure rate, and ensure you don’t lose the trust in computational being a value add
• Ways to future-proof tools in preparation for potential incompatibility with updated software