11 minute read
NXT BLD on-demand
from AEC Magazine Q3 2022
by X3DMEDIA
From digital fabrication and generative design to collaborative visions for the future, AEC Magazine’s NXT BLD 2022 had something for eveyone. And now it’s available to view completely free on-demand
Somewhat miraculously we managed to slot in a NXT BLD show in November 2021, inbetween Covid waves. This year we managed to get back to our traditional June timeslot, although instead of fighting viruses, we had to contend with a National Rail strike and simultaneous industrial action on London Underground.
The editorial team would like to thank everyone who managed to make it to the Queen Elizabeth II Centre. We were overwhelmed at the doggedness of Londoners who bussed, cycled, drove and delegates who came in the night before and stayed over to ensure they were there! A special shout goes out to Bruce Bell from Facit Homes, who managed to turn up despite having recently broken his collar bone!
While we try and ensure the topics cover a broad range of innovation, some threads can usually be identified within a number of talks. This year we had a good handful of presentations on the future of construction, whether that be off site, by robot or through deploying AI to head off on-site problems. Check out the excellent talks from Joel Hutchines, Mollie Claypool, Hedwig Heinsman, Sam Leder and Maria Yablonina. We also had Reda Masarwa from Intel on pre-fabrication of its semiconductor plants but, unfortunately, we cannot post that for security reasons.
Our keynote speaker was Michael Marks, co-founder of the off-site construction unicorn, Katerra. We had never had an active venture capitalist come and talk at the event before and he was exceptionally generous with his time - and with everyone pitching him constantly as he walked around the building!
We also like to bring in speakers from other industries and this year’s line-up included Oscar Stålberg, an independent games developer from Sweden who has produced a fantastic architectural game call Townscaper (PC, mobile and Quest). The player builds a city by simply clicking on a grid, the buildings change procedurally depending on how tall they are or their proximity to other buildings. We have literally had hours of fun with Townscaper and now, understanding the philosophy behind the design, has made us like it even more.
Lenovo surprised us by choosing NXT BLD 2022 to launch its new ThinkStation P360 Ultra at the event. The brand new desktop workstation seemingly defies the laws of thermodynamics, as it has a tiny form factor but still manages to pack in high-end workstation class graphics (Nvidia RTX A5000) for pro viz and VR workflows, 128 GB of DDR5 memory, and top-end 125W 12th Generation Intel core processors (see news page 16 for more info).
NXT BLD will be back at the Queen Elzabeth II Centre in June 2023, where we can all compare our energy bills and laugh (cry) over a beer.
Over 10 hours of content
Digital fabrication, generative design collaboration, VR construction, AI, architecture, real-time, plus lots more
VIEW FREE ON-DEMAND nxtbld.com
In the meantime, all of the presentations from NXT BLD 2022 are available to view ondemand, completely free. So grab a coffee and dive in. You’re welcome.
Joel Hutchines // Slate.ai
Oskar Stålberg // Townscaper
Emma Hooper // Bond Bryan Digital Samuel Leder // University of Stuttgart
Mollie Claypool // Automated Architecture
Michael Marks // Celesta Capital
On a Road to Nowhere? Greg Schleusner // HOK
Schleusner is doing some great research work at HOK. He is looking at how, using IFC and modern databases, it’s possible to maintain a transactional (by entity) external data lake to proprietary BIM tools.
His aim is to build a working prototype which could match the huge interoperability benefit which Pixar’s USD format has given the media and entertainment sector. If only the AEC industry can break free of these BIM silos, we can liberate the data.
Having made his money in the electronics market heading up Flextronics, then run Tesla and started up off-site construction firm Katerra (which raised $3 billion) Marks is a walking wealth of information. He likes nothing more than disrupting industries and investing in things he has a passion for. In his talk he shared his experiences as an entrepreneur and an investor in construction technology, and why he firmly believes that industrial methods, coupled with innovative software, might deliver buildings in months, as opposed to years.
ThinkStation P360 Ultra launch Chris Ruffo & Jeff Wood // Lenovo
NXT BLD 2022 saw Lenovo’s Jeff Wood and Chris Ruffo unveil the ThinkStation P360 Ultra, a new desktop workstation with more processing power than a typical Small Form Factor (SFF) workstation and around half the size.
For us, the thing that really stands out about this machine is the Nvidia RTX A5000 GPU with 16 GB of VRAM. It’s a big jump up from the Nvidia RTX ‘2000’ or ‘3000’ class GPUs often found in compact workstations and makes the P360 Ultra suitable for a much wider range of GPU-accelerated AEC workflows.
See page 16 for more details
Circular Architecture-as-a-Service Hedwig Heinsman // Aectual & DUS Architects
Heinsman is world-renowned as an architect who has mastered and deployed 3D printing in biodegradable and recycled materials at her practice DUS Architects. She’s also co-founder of Aectual, a 3D printing service for made-to-measure interior designs. Heinsman believes that digital design tools, combined with digital manufacturing techniques such as 3D printing and recyclable materials, can break this age-old paradigm and give people worldwide direct access to sustainable spatial solutions.
Real time decision making in construction Felipe Manzatucci // Skanska
Manzatucci oversees the digitalisation journey of Skanska UK. To do this he engages with forward thinking developers to develop new technology to improve real-time decision making in construction projects. In his talk, Manzatucci looks at the role that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play in predicting trouble ahead on projects and aid in avoiding costly delays. For those of you who like project dashboards, Manzatucci has some very bad news for you!
Convergence: the intersection of reality with the virtual Ken Pimentel // Epic Games
Pimentel is AEC Industry Manager at Epic Games, one of the leading software developers creating real time experiences based on Unreal Engine. While most in the industry are still working out what digital twins actually means, Unreal’s capability to display massive sets of geometry and attributes already has customers using it for city and country digital twins. This talk also covered some of the adventures in real-time that are taking place, along with revealing a new report on how architectural firms are benefiting from adoption of the technology.
Architecture-specific distributed robotic systems Samuel Leder // University of Stuttgart
If you love robots you will love Leder’s work. Based at the Institute for Computational Design in Stuttgart, he explores autonomous construction using a robotic system which can move about the worksite as it builds. His work envisages a swarm of small, agile construction robots that can produce complex, functionally adapted assemblies from individual parts in highly parallel processes. Each of his robots can fit into a small suitcase and has grabbing arms to hold onto timber struts. When used as a swarm, the robots use the timber struts to move about the structure.
Designing (with) Machines Maria Yablonina // University of Toronto
Yablonina is an architect, researcher, artist and assistant professor working in the field of computational design and digital fabrication at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty. Her fascination with machinery and automation has driven her many architectural research projects. Her current work focuses on the development of task-specific robotic devices and systems that are inherently suitable for in-situ fabrication as architectural intervention within the context of existing building stock. Her feature-packed talk has plenty of thought provoking demonstrations of Yablonina’s machines.
From Laser scanning to Magic Jonathan Stephens // Everypoint
We all had big hopes for low-cost laser scanning, but the prices never went below £15k. The LiDAR scanner on the iPhone Pro is disappointingly low resolution. However, if you combine it with modern photogrammetry and the sensor data from Apple’s AR toolkit, an iPhone can be used to scan at equivalent accuracy to a Leica BLK. Stephens from Everypoint gives an explanation of how iPhones can be useful for on-site verification and data capture. This is a revelation!
A tour of Townscaper Oskar Stålberg // Independent Video Game Developer
I know we talk a lot about the ‘gamification’ of CAD but this is the architecturisation of games. Swedish independent games developer, Stålberg created a wonderful digital ‘toy’ called Townscaper. The procedural game enables anyone to design a towering city by pointing and clicking. Stålberg opens the hood on games development and explores the logic behind the morphing buildings.
Post-Parametric Design Conor Black // Arup
Black is an architect and design computation specialist within Arup. He gives a fascinating explanation of modelling tools and techniques and their evolution, looking at generative design through multiple examples and methods, together with how Arup is consolidating its company knowledge in the cloud and providing customers with tools to do their own analysis.
In 2020 when Covid drove NXT BLD online, Claypool gave a remote presentation on her work at AUAR (Automated Architecture) at UCL. This year we managed to get her back in person, in spite of the train strike.
Mollie has put her knowledge into practice and AUAR has become a business, utilising robots in the building automation and production of timber block Home-Offices. The high-quality, sustainable, and affordable housing can be reconfigured should needs change.
Technology Revolution vs. Evolution Mike Leach // Lenovo
In his presentation on the evolution of workstation technology, Leach (with tongue firmly in cheek) apologised to customers who bought a ThinkStation P350. After all, its successor, the ThinkStation P360, is up to 65% faster when rendering thanks to its 12th Gen Intel Core processors.
Leach also delved into CPU cores, CPU frequency, memory, storage, GPUs, GPU memory and more explaining their importance to various AEC workflows.
Designing through the Magic Lens of Real-Time Tools Dr. Fang Xu // Foster + Partners
At AEC Magazine we have long held the belief that VR and AR will be important design environments for architecture. Dr Fang, Xu, an associate at Foster + Partners explains how today’s design tools need VR and AR to better understand the buildings they design, by being immersed. He demonstrated Project Fission and Downtown Explorer, built on top of Unreal Engine. Fang sees a tremendous potential in building immersive, real-time 3D tools that foreground humans’ dynamic visual relations with the built environment in the design process.
Information models and the future of IFC Emma Hooper // Bond Bryan Digital
Following on from organising a mammoth BuildingSmart IFC special report in AEC magazine (www.tinyurl.com/IFC-AECMAG), we asked Hooper to give a talk on data models, the IFC foundation layer and where IFC developments will be heading in the future. Coupled with Greg Schlesuner’s talk on IFC as a common data layer for the dynamic exchange between disparate users, NXT BLD 2022 was a proper IFC-fest.
On a road to nowhere? Greg Schleusner // HOK
Harness the power of Omniverse Enterprise to enhance your existing workflows Chris Mcleod // Nvidia
Mcleod gave a whistlestop tour of Omniverse Enterprise, Nvidia’s USD-centric collaboration and simulation platform, from its basic building blocks to some of the more advanced features. Often when talking about simulation in Omniverse, one thinks of simulating light, but Mcleod shared some interesting examples of how wind studies for urban developments derived from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software can be combined with real-time visualisation to help designers make informed decisions much earlier on in the design process.
Moving beyond DfMA to Design for Constructability Joel Hutchines // Slate.ai
Hutchines is the founder of Splash Modular and now works at Slate.ai. His talk covers what is necessary for success in design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA). He thinks it’s important for architects to understand how they’re going to build what they design. To benefit from modern pre-construction methods architectural designs must be easy to construct. To do this Hutchines says it’s important to get the right information into the right people’s hands as early as possible. He shares his experiences and gives pointers in how to succeed in adopting IC/MMC solutions.
