On Monday afternoon I flew back across to the Netherlands, this time from Bern airport.
My main purpose for this trip was to attend the Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design, or SimAUD, in Delft.
I’ve been staying at an Airbnb a little way out of the centre of town, the advantage being I’m just across from a really pretty park.
Delft is a university town and is a bit like a smaller, easier version of Amsterdam. There are canals everywhere…
… and almost everyone seems to travel around by bike:
I rented a bike from a local shop for 10 euros per day. If you look closely you can see me on it in the window’s reflection:
Delft’s railway station has a fantastic space for parking bikes beneath it.
You don’t necessarily have to rent bikes by the day, these days: you can also use Mobikes on a ride-by-ride basis. Lorenzo and Danil, colleagues from The Living in New York, have been using these all week:
SimAUD is being hosted by TU Delft, in their Architecture building:
SimAUD was originally started, many moons ago, by members of Autodesk Research (including my manager, Azam Khan). The conference is now completely independent and attracts a few hundred people each year. The conference is currently a really nice size, in that there’s a critical mass of people who make it worth attending, but it’s still a single-track conference (so everyone basically sees the same content).
The content can be a little heavy for those of us more used to dealing with bits than atoms, but it’s still extremely interesting.
Lorenzo and Danil are presenting a session on Generative Urban Design on Thursday. (They recently presented a webinar on Generative Design for Architectural Space Planning, in case you want to check it out).
Each day there’s a public keynote in a central space that allows students from TU Delft to attend. The first day’s was by Marilyne Andersen from EPFL, discussing embracing daylighting dynamics in human-driven design.
In the evening we met with Jelmer Frank from Van Wijnen and headed across to Restaurant VOC, a lovely place selected by my colleague Ruslana.
It contained a beautiful spiral staircase that apparently used to be installed in a steamship on the Mississippi.
Dinner was delicious! Here’s a shot of the various Autodeskers attending SimAUD (Ruslana, Hali, Danil, Ramtin, Lorenzo and myself) along with Jelmer Frank from Van Wijnen and Gabriel Wainer from Carleton University (another of SimAUD’s co-founders).
This morning I came in early and wandered around the architectural workshop. I love how empty university buildings are at 8am.
I’m really happy I’ve had the chance to attend this year’s (and my first) SimAUD. I’m leaving a little early – I’ll just get to see a few sessions on Thursday, the last day – as I’m heading off on a bigger trip, next week, and need to spend some time with my family before I head off.
