What Can a Computational Design Team Do For You?

Most Computational Design tools are essentially free. The real investment is in finding the right people and then advancing their computation capabilities. Design organizations should be looking for do-it-yourself creative thinkers that have a knack for making digital tools.

The most common task, to start with, is automating certain repetitive, mundane workflows used by many in the organisation. Then, the CD team could be leveraged for rapid prototyping of ideas, evaluating building performance and creating custom tools and plug-ins. 

Nathan Miller from Proving Ground has discovered a sweet spot for the makeup of computation-enabled design teams: the 70/20/10 ratio. 70% should have enough working knowledge of pre-made computational tools; 20% should be able to build simple tools and modify existing algorithms; 10% should have an advanced skill set in creating sophisticated tools and solutions.

The future use case of BIM is not restricted to simply creating the Information model, but also updating it real-time through technologies such as IoT. This will enable automation based off of real aggregated data. But for managing large data sets, one would need robust cloud data management. And to visualize such data sets for informed decision making, we need VR/AR technologies. 

While every Government wants to get on the ‘Smart Cities’ Bandwagon, there is little discussion on how to manage the enormous data that will be designed, modeled and collected through technologies such as IoT and so on. What we need is a CIM framework that will actually make smart cities happen.

WeWork is not your typical real estate company. It’s a technology company where its in-house architects treat interior design like software design. Using 7D BIM, they look at building as layers of interactive data. This makes far more information available to the architects, allowing them to make informed design decisions.

As an Industry, we should continue to pressure Software vendors to develop products that allows for interoperability and seamless integration. As designers, we should have the freedom to choose the right tool for the job, without having to be silo-ed within one ecosystem.