One highly debated topic in the AEC industry over the past 5 years is this exact question: "Is Computational Design for Everyone?" Are you struggling with this question? Are you considering which team members need what training? Are you managing the infrastructure of your digital design initiatives? Are you asking if Computational Design should be a separate department or part of every designer's skillset in 2020? Is Computational Design for all designers or a select group? Have you been trying to increase buy-in for computational design across your offices? Join us as we discuss what computational design looks at offices around the world. This will be a heated discussion, so you will not want to miss it and your contribution to the industry will be invaluable to others. As an outcome we will produce a general summary, as a group, that helps define successful computational structures, and maybe discover something completely new in the process.

An increasing number of designers, architects, and engineers are using graph-based visual programming and scripting techniques to generate and optimize design solutions. The Design Computation Symposium is a forum for presenting the results of this new approach to design and for discussing the development and use of computational design tools. With conventional computer-aided design, the designer uses interactive and direct modeling techniques to create or edit the design. By comparison, a computational designer uses scripting and other graph-based programming techniques. The script essentially captures the logic of the design and its execution generates the design solution, or indeed generates numerous design alternatives. This year's symposium features a number of different presentations from accomplished researchers, practitioners, and educators which focus on the fascinating relationship between logic, geometry, architectural form, analysis, simulation, and digital fabrication.

The Design Computation Symposium will explore how advanced firms are bridging the gap between Computational Design and Building Information Modeling. Speaker topics will include both pragmatic aspects of digital design in daily practice, and forward thinking ideas and research. There are three main areas of interest under this theme: ‚ Performance-based design, simulation and analysis. ‚ Digital fabrication and construction processes. ‚ Data Flow between real and digital environments.

Computing power is increasing exponentially, however, structural engineers are only starting to realize its power for design automation. This talk will focus on how this can be used to provide optioneering in early project stages, and investigate a computational scheme design tool. The talk will deconstruct the tool and its logic to demonstrate the integration between the various Autodesk packages and how this is formed into a cohesive product to provide valuable information for design teams. The tool provides metrics such as material cost, embodied C02, and program implications, while utilizing the Atkins Human-Centered Design toolkit to ensure a holistic appreciation of project requirements. The talk will feature exemplar uses of the tool on pilot projects and will quantify the increased value achievable over conventional design approaches. We will then discuss future improvements to the tool and how computational design could be used in other ways to improve structural design.

Computational design enables architects to design parametrically, using visual programming to automate design processes and simulate, script, customize the parameters of, and generate design solutions—making it easier to explore ideas and innovate. Design practices big and small are turning to computational design to solve problems in new ways. Students with experience in computational design have a distinct advantage in their careers. Hear how Autodesk Dynamo is helping the next generation design structures and buildings and create using digital fabrication.

The class/presentation will cover a holistic overview of a digital platform that integrates different systems. This Rapid workflow starts with the Optioneering design that sets the base for the Preliminary design, which then combines the Pavement decision tree and its automated design. This workflow reduces the time required for the early design stages, enhances collaboration between different parties and improves the decision making in the early design phases. The benefits for the audience should be the combination of different tools and techniques that need to be used in order to achieve a fully automated and integrated platform. The outcomes will include; how the use of a centralized database will support the data flow, how customized programming scripts will solve any software limitations, the principles of computational design and how you need to approach it for benefiting your design.

Come hear how leading designers are interconnecting design, optimization and fabrication to support new ways of working.

Bastian Schaefer from Airbus and David Benjamin from The Living will show how generative design, optimization and new fabrication techniques are being used today in the aerospace industry. They will discuss their work on new aircraft designs and the Bionic Partition project, a new aircraft part designed via a novel optimization process and 3d printed directly in metal.

Gijs Van Der Velden of MX3D will speak about the exciting design, optimization and robotic fabrication processes they are creating in order to robotically construct a bridge in Amsterdam.

Achim Menges will show the stunning work his group is creating at the Institute for Computational Design in Stuttgart Germany using a variety of materials and robotic fabrication techniques. Achim’s practice and research focuses on the intersection of design computation, biomimetic engineering and computer aided manufacturing that enables a highly articulated, performative built environment.

Add the Design Computation Symposium Part 1 to your schedule.

Now in its eighth year, the Design Computation Symposium is one of the premier events at Autodesk University.  This year we are broadening the reach of the half-day symposium with the theme: “Ubiquitous Computing: How Computing Is Being Made More Accessible.”  Writing code has traditionally been the realm of computer nerds and scientists.  Today, high-school, middle school, and even elementary school students are learning programming. With the rise of STE(A)M in education and the teaching of Computational Literacy in schools, how is the world changing and what will this current generation come to expect out of design tools in the near future? Mobile devices and new ways of programming are opening up the world of computing to more people.  Instant feedback allows this expanded group of programmers to test their solutions instantly and create better tools. With computational resources that are easier to access, the focus can change from how to write code correctly to what kinds of problems can we solve, which problems are worth solving, and how well can we solve them?  Come hear fascinating stories from inventors, entrepreneurs, architects, and academics about how they are enabling more people to leverage design computation in inspiring ways.

In this class, we’ll demonstrate how to use automation for transportation, land development, and pipe networks workflows in Civil 3D software through Dynamo and Python. The class will introduce Dynamo for Civil 3D capabilities, focusing on the implementation of computational design for infrastructures. We will cover how to expand the possible workflows through Python scripting to use the AutoCAD and Civil 3D APIs.

Zaha Hadid Architects are known for their signature fluid architecture and computational design. The transformation of these projects into Revit BIM models represents a special challenge and requires custom workflows. During the last years, we have created BIM models for a number of iconic global projects and have used a variety of efficient and innovative methods that could enhance and inspire your work as well. // This presentation will explore practical examples that deal with the efficient cross-application transfer of geometry and metadata using custom software, visual scripting and the cloud. We will show how to utilise the different types of Revit families to generate parametric, rule-based geometry and freeform elements. How can visual scripting in Dynamo enhance our computational design and how could an efficient façade workflow utilising computational design, intelligent BIM elements, and metadata analysis look like? What challenges did we face and how did our methods evolve?

Zaha Hadid Architects are known for their signature fluid architecture and computational design. The transformation of these projects into Revit BIM models represents a special challenge and requires custom workflows. During the last years, we have created BIM models for a number of iconic global projects and have used a variety of different methods. This presentation will explore practical examples that deal with the efficient cross-application transfer of geometry and metadata using custom software, visual scripting, and the cloud. We will show how to utilise the different types of Revit families to generate parametric, rule-based geometry and freeform elements. How can visual scripting in Dynamo enhance our computational design and how could an efficient faﾍade workflow utilising computational design, intelligent BIM elements, and metadata analysis look? What challenges did we face and how did our methods evolve?

Computational design is the “new black” for design practices, but how can an organization take a specialized skill set and turn it into a core practical capability? Matt Goldsberry and Nathan Miller will present strategies for developing a computational design network in architectural practice that addresses skill-set growth, tool creation, and content management. Using HDR Architecture as a case study, this class will explore tactics for growing this specialized skill set to be a core capability within a design practice. We will discuss computational strategies that have contributed to the ability to win work, create design efficiencies, and improve building performance. This session features Dynamo Studio and Revit. AIA Approved

Alias 2019 software comes together with the very special add-in called Dynamo. Dynamo is the computational design platform embedded into Alias and interacting with the geometry created within it. Computational design is a change in the medium of design expression from geometry to logic. It lets designers and engineers create geometry relationships based on rules rather than traditional sculpting/push-pull manipulations. By encoding design rules in a computational framework, it's possible to quickly generate complex, parametric, repetitive geometries, and iterate among different options to determine the best solution. In this class, we will discuss some practical methods of how to model complex patterns like intake, speaker, or front grill. This will include how to deal with the pattern on multiple trimmed surfaces, how to start, and which Dynamo tools to use.

Come hear how leading designers are interconnecting design, optimization and fabrication to support new ways of working.

Dave Fano of WeWork (previously of CASE) will give us his view of where the AEC industry is today in its application of BIM, computational and data-driven design. Dave was the CEO of CASE over the past 7 years and now is part of WeWork, giving him a unique point of view on the AEC industry’s current state and future possibilities.

Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg of Nervous System with discuss the design philosophy and fabrication process used to create their amazing work. Nervous System is a generative design studio that works at the intersection of science, art, and technology. Drawing inspiration from natural phenomena, they create computer simulations to generate designs and use digital fabrication to realize products.

Add the Design Computation Symposium Part 2 to your schedule.

Design computation is a way of thinking and approaching design that goes beyond the tools involved. This class will focus on how Dynamo visual programming language extension fits into the design computation workflow at NBBJ and the larger architecture industry by walking through a series of example tools, processes, and approaches to computation. Dynamo extension excels at bridging the gap between what Revit software does really well and the ways that designers want to work. The class will explore practical examples along 2 primary avenues: workflow automation and rapid feedback. Key to both is data management. Revit software holds a lot more information than it easily presents. By extracting data and synthesizing it with internal or external information, Dynamo extension can push that information back into the model or present it to the designer to drive informed decisions.

In this session, we’ll examine the business value of computational and generative design for your company by reviewing a comparative analysis of design processes, including covering Dynamo, Refinery, and Revit software.

In the world of structural engineering, we are challenged to consider many design options, to find the fittest solution in the shortest time, and to be leaders in economic structure design. In this class, you will discover how computational design techniques can help automate this process in design and fabrication workflows for building structures. You will be blown away by several structural engineering workflows that you can use to optimize your designs with Dynamo. All kinds of techniques and computational design approaches will be considered to generate, evaluate, evolve, and cycle through structural design processes. You will understand how to perform your own design automation for repetitive structural tasks.

Increasingly, our Building Information Modeling (BIM) projects require the delivery of detailed models. In the reinforced concrete industry, it is becoming a standard to create fabrication-ready models as manufacturing-centric approaches are entering the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) world. In this class, you will discover the effect when computational design meets reinforcement detailing. Do you want to get introduced to the world of computational rebar design? Then this session will familiarize you with the Autodesk, Inc., technology for complex reinforcement detailing with Revit software and Dynamo software. In this powerful 90 minutes, you will see a few examples, from the automation of basic rebar design over radial fan-shaped rebars to complex irregular elements. After this session, you will be inspired by the power and dynamics of parametric and computational design for complex problems. This session features Revit Structure and Dynamo Studio. AIA Approved

The technology and tools for computational design in the built environment have never been more powerful or progressive. To complement their specific discipline knowledge, the current and next generation of designers and engineers entering the global workforce are armed with skills ranging from sketching to programming to Building Information Modeling (BIM). As buildings have grown in complexity so too has the power and ubiquity of simulation tools used by different specialist disciplines, with information and processes getting more disconnected up until data is transferred to a common format for delivery. It is time to shift focus away from data toward the spaces between the data. By extrapolating recent innovations in structural engineering processes—such as real-time feedback and gesture-based simulation using Robot Structural Analysis software—we will explore the possibilities of multidisciplinary building simulation using visual programming applications such as Dynamo software to control Revit software and other packages.

The design and engineering of steel structures is getting increasingly complex. Changes are difficult to handle and curvatures are becoming more challenging. Do you want to get inspired by the power and dynamics of parameteric and computational design? In this hands-on class you will learn some tricks for optimising structural frame and panel designs, using computational design techniques. Besides modelling, you'll discover ways to involve fabrication data early in the design process. And finally you'll learn about fabrication optimisation techniques. This class uses Dynamo, Project Fractal, Revit, and Advance Steel.