At AEC Magazine’s NXT BLD and NXT DEV events in London on 25-26 June you’ll not only see what the future holds for AEC technology but you can have a say in how it unfolds.
You’ve mastered the first generation of BIM tools, now it’s time to push the boundaries with new model-based processes to drive better productivity and higher quality outcomes.
Join us on 25 June for NXT BLD and 26 June for NXT DEV at the iconic Queen Elizabeth II Centre. Let’s get inspired, let’s challenge the status quo, and let’s help bring forward the next frontier of AEC technologies and workflows that promise to revolutionise how we design and build our world.
What’s in store at NXT BLD 2024?
NXT BLD this year covers a broad range of technology areas including automation, generative design, data, openness, XR, GeoBIM, expert systems, design to fabrication, architectural meta-worlds, workstation technology and of course AI and machine learning.
There is a chasm between digital design and fabrication, which is holding back the adoption of modern methods of construction. Several speakers will address the issue from different angles.
Dale Sinclair from WSP is connecting architecture to fabrication. Antoine Morizot of Bouygues Construction has a system that can automate BIM models to BoMs, drawings and cost. Intel’s Jeremy Tully will explain how modular construction is used to rapidly deploy Intel’s next generation of semiconductor fabs. Marty Rozmanith of Skema will look at technologies which can automate architectural BIM to output designs at Level 400.
As the industry moves from BIM 1.0 to BIM 2.0, there is a danger of unleashing another Tower of Babel on the industry with next gen software. The industry is fed up of proprietary lock-ins and data wrangling. So how can this be avoided? Thankfully there is a lot of talk about ‘openness’ and adoption of standards between both new and old software houses.
Greg Schleusner of HOK will demonstrate new interoperability software currently in development. Autodesk’s Virginia Senf and Sasha Crotty will be laying bare the company’s next generation data strategy. Bentley Systems CTO Julien Moutte will be talking about Bentley’s decision to opensource its data schema. Antonio González Viegas wants to level the BIM playing field with a new open-source BIM modeller.
As the BIM 2.0 story develops, it’s becoming clear that not only will there be new design software to work alongside, or replace existing tools, but there will be new expert systems and applications which will crush existing workflows at multiple points and connect design to fabrication. Openness now seems like a base requirement, rather than an afterthought.
We also take a voyage into the fantastical, with Chantal Matar, an architect and artist who uses cutting edge technology for generative design. Working with AI tools like midjourney, and neural networks with NERFs, she explores future cities and new possibilities. Her inspirational work has been driven by technology but still retains beautiful organic, kinetic forms that look sculpted and other-worldly.
NXT BLD 2024 speaker highlights
Patrik Schumacher
Partner
Zaha Hadid Architects
With the advent of 3D modelling, architects have moved beyond designing physical buildings and now create swathes of valuable digital assets in high definition USD. Treasury is a new registry and data vault, for designed spatial assets, which can be licensed for use in areas such as film and virtual meta worlds. It is co-founded by Zaha Hadid Architects, Spaceform (backed by BIG) and Heatherwicks.
At NXT BLD, Patrik Schumacher and Shajay Bhooshan of Zaha Hadid Architects, together with John Manoochehri of Treasury will discuss the benefits of expanding into the new digital frontier of meta and highlight Treasury’s benefits to creators and builders.
Dale Sinclair
Head of innovation
WSP
While at AECOM, as director of innovation, Sinclair pioneered the move to architects using MCAD tools such as Autodesk Inventor, alongside traditional BIM with Revit, to better communicate with fabricators and to model at 1:1 levels of detail. Now at WSP, he has substantially matured that approach and developed and deployed applications within new workflows, to bring a manufacturing mindset into the early design phase of process, optimising the building design, management and computational delivery of varied, large-scale projects.
Chantal Matar
Studio Chantal Matar
Generative architect, Matar has been on the leading edge of both design and design technology. Having worked at Zaha Hadid Architects and Atelier Des Architectes Associés, she has applied art and mixed-media skills to many projects. Matar will explain her methodology and show the results of blending architectural knowledge with cutting-edge digital processes, such
as photogrammetry and NeRFS.
Virginia Senf & Sasha Crotty
AEC design data team lead
Autodesk
The industry is moving away from files and monolithic desktop applications to centralised cloud-databases to aid collaboration and create BIM 2.0 workflows. As the market leader in BIM 1.0, Autodesk will give us a glimpse of the database strategies it will deploy to connect the file-based world with the database-centric universe.
Antoine Morizot
Technical solution architect
Bouygues Construction (Bryck)
Bouygues Construction has been working closely with Dassault Systèmes on an automated expert system which takes in BIM models, rationalises them to components which best optimise Bouygues’ fabrication facilities, creates Level 400 fabrication models, BoMs, drawings and delivers cost estimates in minutes. The system, called Bryck, has impressed the company so much that it’s just signed up for seven more years of development.
Sean Young
Nvidia
It feels like the use of AI is about to explode across all a