Join Buro Happold, Innovators at AU 2023
If you are a designer in the modern era, chances are you have integrated new and rapidly developing technology into your design process, whether to streamline design iterations, improve collaboration, enhance decision-making, contribute to the overall success and sustainability of construction, or all the above.
To discuss the ways in which Buro Happold has spearheaded the integration of digital technology into our own baseline workflow, we’ll be sharing our tried and tested lessons, successes, and innovations in the digital sphere at Autodesk University 2023, which will take place November 13-15 in Las Vegas.
Digital tools offer a holistic approach to designing, building, and managing projects in the built environment, making them an essential part of modern design and construction practices. For example, digital tools help us understand embodied carbon and material impacts of our projects and offer transformative design innovations. Buro Happold’s early adoption of tools like the digital twin has allowed us to realize some of the world’s most complex designs, like The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, The Louvre Abu Dhabi, and Morpheus, while pushing the limits of sustainable and regenerative design solutions and propelling our firm to achieve ground breaking decarbonization strategies for clients like the Empire State Realty Trust.
For us, this is what engineering is all about – pushing innovation forward and testing the limits of what was previously thought possible to achieve new ways of practice and new outcomes. Digital tools allow us to look at buildings and environments in all their complexities and offer a complete holistic change from the way we design and do construction to one that is people centered and planet centered. For our clients, this means smarter spaces that require less energy and reduce costs while providing comfortable environments for building occupants and more thoughtful integration with surrounding communities.
We will be hosting six sessions that cover digital technologies and their power at different scales, from giga developments to urban scale master planning projects. These sessions will share our practical advice for integrating digital tools successfully on projects so they can be a positive tool for change instead of a hurdle or added layer of complexity. See below for complete session descriptions.
BES601741 | Understanding BIM Data at Scale: Data Processing Infrastructure for Revit
Tuesday, Nov 14 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM PST
Pawel Baran
“Data is the new oil.” This quote was made more than 15 years ago, and it is more valid than ever. The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is in possession of massive amounts of data, but often struggles to turn it into profit. BuroHappold actively innovates in the field, building out capacity to extract, process, and interpret the data embedded in its intelligent models at scale. This involves setting up a multilevel framework, including databases and code infrastructure, as well as presentation layers. A prototype of the system provides two main functionalities that deliver three types of information in a flexible and extendible manner: building queries and running them against Revit models (correctness) as well as periodic extraction of model metrics (project progress and performance). The session will guide you through the thought process behind the undertaking and implementation itself, starting from inception to the current state of the project.
1327 | Transforming Design & Make with AI
Tuesday, Nov 14 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM PST
May Winfield
Generative AI is disrupting design and make industries fundamentally. Imagine a day when 90% of all design effort could be automated and simplified just as design and make tools and platforms are becoming more accessible to more people. In this session we will discuss how AI impacts product development methods, design and make workflows, user experiences and team structures, and even business models. Although we encourage enrolment for the Theatre, seating will be based on a first come, first served basis.
BES600944 | Implementing Iris VR into a Global Design Company
Tuesday, Nov 14 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM PST
Calum Reekie, Des Kinlough
Do you want to learn how BuroHappold is adapting to a digital transformation? We are using new virtual reality (VR) technologies to provide an additional layer of immersive reviews to a project to help increase efficiency, improve outcomes, and deliver value for our clients and our company. This class will explain our VR problems and how we resolved them through investment in new hardware and software—with a spotlight on Iris VR. The session will show you how we developed and implemented a simple VR strategy that allows us to integrate VR into our daily building information modelling (BIM) workflow. We will cover the challenges we faced, lessons learned, and outcomes achieved.
AS602593 | The 1.5 million-Piece Jigsaw: Delivering the London Olympic Legacy
Wednesday, Nov 15 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM PST
Michael Bartyzel
When challenged to manage building information modelling (BIM) on a project the size of a small city, routine project planning is not enough. This case study will show which current BIM management tools and methods work and which ones fail on a real project of 10 million square feet. Spoiler: There were many broken tools and many crashed computers. We will show how a small but effective BIM and computational team can save hundreds of thousands of dollars through resource management, technological innovation, failure prevention, team upskilling, and cloud collaboration. We will also touch on how managers can facilitate the use of computational workflows by being a bridge between users and tools. We want you to leave empowered to tackle BIM on projects of any size and any scale while also knowing how to evolve these methods for the future.
AS603042 | Real-Time City-Scale Data Streaming to Unreal Engine and Analytics
Wednesday, Nov 15 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM PST
Anthony Tuffour
This talk will be about real-time, city-scale data visualization, analytics, computation, and simulation in Unreal Engine. We will demonstrate real-world examples where complex master-planning data sets from multiple stakeholders were integrated to build an immersive digital twin platform in Unreal Engine. You will learn how the outcome facilitated stakeholder engagement and collaboration and the ability to explore what-if scenarios of the urban development. Materials and textures application and rendering were automated, enabling application of different materials composition to city infrastructure and buildings to provide a realistic feel of the urban context. The speed of the real-time rendering was a masterpiece of computational geometry application to achieve automated processes.
BES602955 | 2023 BIM Manager’s Handbook, Volume 1: A 10 million-Square-Foot Giga-Project
Wednesday, Nov 15 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM PST
Andrea Allas
When challenged to manage building information modelling (BIM) on a project the size of a small city, routine project planning is not enough. This case study will show which current BIM management tools and methods work and which ones fail on a real project of 10 million square feet. Spoiler: There were many broken tools and many crashed computers. We will show how a small but effective BIM and computational team can save hundreds of thousands of dollars through resource management, technological innovation, failure prevention, team upskilling, and cloud collaboration. We will also touch on how managers can facilitate the use of computational workflows by being a bridge between users and tools. We want you to leave empowered to tackle BIM on projects of any size and any scale while also knowing how to evolve these methods for the future.
Are you planning to attend Autodesk University this year? Our technology team will be there, and we would love the opportunity to meet up for a coffee or lunch. It is the perfect setting to share insights, identify opportunities for collaboration, and discuss enhancing efficiencies in project delivery and data sharing. If you’re going to be there, let’s schedule a time to connect.
Cannot make AU 2023 but still interested in how the integration of digital tools can transform your projects? Reach out to us!
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