The Autodesk Construction Cloud team kindly shared a post on LinkedIn, last week, about a project I participated in.
There’s a new book from Springer on “Innovation in Construction” for which I contributed a chapter called “Cutting-Edge Practical Research on Generative Design, IoT and Digital Twins”. This chapter weighs in at 29 pages – of an overall 454 for the book – and here’s its abstract:
This chapter explores two areas of research undertaken by Autodesk over the last decade and how they both have the potential to impact the construction industry. The first area relates to the Internet of Things and the possibilities around integrating sensor data from smart buildings into a 3D context for exploration and visualization. This has the potential to drive interesting workflows related to understanding and optimizing the performance of the built environment, but more broadly will have the potential to impact design and fabrication processes. The other area of research described in this chapter relates to generative design, particularly in the context of the AEC industry. Autodesk’s work in this area started in 2010 with a project named Dreamcatcher. It was further accelerated in 2014 with the acquisition of The Living, an architectural studio which had—under the guidance of its principal David Benjamin—started exploring the application of multi-objective optimization through the use of genetic algorithms for architecture, engineering and construction industry (AEC) workflows. Looking to the future, real-world performance data captured via IoT—and hosted in Digital Twins—will increasingly influence the Generative Design process, as Autodesk and other software providers start to complement algorithmic exploration of the design space with machine learning systems trained with data from prior projects and captured using physical sensors. This has the potential to drive “closed-loop” processes where performance increases with each design iteration or system re-configuration.
As you can see from the above image, my colleague Oliver Lepinoy also co-wrote a chapter called “Some Changes Are Invisible to the Eyes: Transformation of Business Models, Organizations, and Cultures”.
You can pick up either chapter in electronic form for CHF 24.95, the full e-Book for CHF 132.00 or a physical hardcover copy for CHF 165.50. (Prices were quoted to me in Swiss Francs, but I suspect that’s a function of where I’m browsing from.)
I will be getting a physical copy of the book, which I’m quite excited about, but I can’t tell you whether the content is worth the price – that’s up to you to decide. Do let me know what you think if you end up getting hold of it!