Whether it’s using tech to solve problems, manage systems, create new possibilities, the AEC industry is famously conservative and tech averse. We’re in the middle of the most amazing period of human innovation, and much of how buildings get designed and built is the same as it was decades ago.  Why is this? There are a number of reasons; a legal environment where no large building is ever built without a lawsuit, bottom lines that do not have room to embrace new, unproven technology, a mindset of those leading AEC of ‘if I do not understand it, it cannot be good.’ Operational processes that still rely on paper. Yes, paper.

Many of us who live in the world of weekend hack-a-thons, building companies and products overnight, understanding the power of emerging tech and cloud collaboration are looking at the AEC industry and asking not only ‘Why has it not changed’?  But ‘Why not change it?’ A group of us that straddle the tech and AEC worlds got together to do just that. After years of seeing good ideas die, seeing projects run over budget and over time, we thought it was high time the AEC industry got hacked.

In November of 2013 we pulled together over 100 tech and AEC pioneers for the first AEC Hackathon. It was a fantastic success, and we’re doing it again on March 14-16^th.  AEC Hackathon 1.1! And what we saw last fall will be nothing compared to what’s coming.

The idea is to bring the intellectual vitality and ‘of course it can be done’ philosophy of the valley to the sober, mission-critical sensibility of the AEC industry, to solve problems, develop innovative solutions, both in hardware and software, and most of all, to bring the two worldviews together.

Our goal is simple: to change the way the builders build, designers design and managers manage our buildings, our cities, our world. Starting with simple problems, we’ve developed new insights, new solutions, and this March, we’re going to do it again.

Instead of committees and working groups, we structured this as a traditional hack, with teams competing for the best solutions to problems that matter to the AEC industry.  If we cannot convince the leaders of the industry to change, we will change it ourselves by example.

So who should attend?  Anyone who is looking to change what they already know is deficiency in the AEC industry, enterprise looking to find new opportunities and coders who are looking to apply their craft to a new problem landscape.

It’s time to build.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBZlfJ-79iM

Have you seen the game trailers for Watch Dogs? In the game, the player is a cyber-vigilante that explores a connected ‘smart’ city and accesses its 2D and 3D information like a high tech Batman. As an example of this, the game even has a website called We Are Data that shows real geo-located information about Paris, Berlin, and London from social media sites and public government datasets. The game seems like a glimpse into a distant future but believe it or not, we have the technology to make this notion of a ‘smart’ city happen now.

Unfortunately the building industry is currently very change-resistant and far behind almost every other industry in adopting new technologies, despite the fact that it has potentially the most to gain from interactive data visualization technologies and the Internet of Things. The technologies also already exist to model our buildings and communities in extremely high levels of detail, including fabrication-level data that is both extremely accurate and ideal for efficient fabrication of buildings components and large assemblies.  This same data can then be used by almost everyone to manage the facility and enable interaction with the occupants, both locally and remotely.  The lack of change is therefore not primarily a technology problem  (and the technology is getting better at an accelerating rate) but rather entrenched change resistance and silo thinking among architects, engineers, fabricators, builders, real estate developers and owners. Sure there is a growing use of 3D by both the geospatial and building communities, but the idea of intelligent interactive 3D cities seems more far fetched than a vacuum tube that shoots people from La to SF in 35 minutes.

In addition, currently we are seeing wearable tech becoming more common with devices like Google Glass, the Pebble watch and other tech that allows us to know things around us as well as letting other systems know that we are there. Yet most buildings are only smart enough to know when to turn a light off and on or other very basic functions. There is far more we can do, but the industry is risk averse and most building owners are unaware of how best to use these innovations. Someone needs to hack this…

Using advanced technologies, we can collaboratively design, manufacture and construct  innovative and high-performance buildings far less expensively and faster than by using conventional processes; but legal concerns, mindsets, domain wars and stubborn change-resistance is holding the industry back and delaying the inevitable democratization of the built environment through open digitization and automation. This has to change!

Imagine using an Oculus Rift to walk through a building to see proposed design changes and its surrounding area, accessing building data via a Google Glass to assist with onsite construction, controlling the systems of a building touch free with haptic devices like LEAP Motion, or having intelligent building systems that interact with occupants via wearables and mobile devices. All of this is possible now,  but who is going to build it? We need a group of cutting edge designers, builders, coders and other change agents that are looking to disrupt the current status quo.

The biggest hurtle is really mindset. But this is not like the issues faced when web 2.0 was proposed, HMD’s for gaming, driver-less cars, even smart watches. Yet here we are. So to combat this, we have to hack it.  The goal of this event that will be held at Facebook’s campus, is to try to kick start the imagination of people in and out of the AEC community to realize there is a lot we can do with the tools we have now.  Imagine using a 3D printer to print out a new facet.  Why not?  Pipe broken, print a new one. Want to add that extra room to the house?  Call your local prefab house builder, send them your house’s digital files and everything is created exactly to fit your existing. Want some new wall art? Put on a Google Glass like device and load up some designs.  The computer already knows about your building so it can match up anything you want to see.

We are starting to see small starts in our smart buildings.  You can buy systems that allow you to turn lights on and off, change the temperature, smart fire alarms, and a few other small things from your mobile phone, but this is barley the tip.  If we can connect smart people with the right data, there is far more we can do.  Hopefully over the next few AEC hackathons, we will see a few hints of that future.  And who knows?  It’s possible something very cool, very fundable will come right from the event. Perhaps something the next version of Watch Dogs will incorporate as we build beyond what even the game proposes for our future.

It all begins seven years back to when I was working in downtown San Francisco with one of the legends in my field. On a day like any other, I see our boss come into the office chatting with another guy that introduces himself as a home builder. This builder goes on to share how he is using game-like technology and robotic manufacturing to improve the home building process. Wait, did he say video games and robots to build houses?

Before SF, I spent 15 years in Dallas, Texas. Here is where I got bombarded with construction sites due to the ongoing suburban sprawl, constant road construction, and land redevelopment. I am among the ranks of many that have become familiar with how construction is done solely through observation.

It didn’t take long to see the theme in what I know can’t be only the Lone Star State. Sure what I am about to say could be construed by some as an extreme generalization. I saw job sites of low wage day labor, crews of various races though the majority I swear only speak Spanish, shovels that help prop people up, the occasional ‘2/3 watching  while 1/3 working’ rule, and a number of other ‘?’s that are a part of how things get built. So here’s this builder in our office saying things can get built this way. Only in SF I am thinking, but yeah how can I help.

That decision started me into the new world of where web3D meets digital fabrication for building in the Architecture, Engineering, Construction Industry. Over the years I’ve worked on the development of various applications that provide services to our team, partners, and future home owners. I have been around the world and seen the latest in AEC technology from R&D labs, practitioners in the field, startups, and colleagues at work.

I have also been educated to and exposed to inefficiencies and problems that confront the industry in residential and commercial. The industry is super wasteful (materials and data), projects usually are over time and budget, it’s hyper litigious, and the list goes on. I will never forget the moment I learned that the norm is to low bid a project and make up costs and margin in the inevitable change orders due to the ambiguity of the design. Yes there are plenty of honest professionals out there and projects that come in on time and even under budget, but take your own poll with home and building owners. Needless to say, there is plenty of room for improvement.

Luckily, this multi-trillion dollar industry is approaching an interesting point in its evolution heavily influenced by technology, economics, the need to be more sustainable, and a cultural shift as it welcomes in the next wave of AEC professionals. Technology is changing the way structures are designed, fabricated, built, marketed, and run. A quick visit to AEC-Apps will provide numerous examples of how software is being integrated throughout a building’s life cycle while groups like the Digital Fabrication Alliance are using tech to improve manufacturing and building processes. Buildings and even cities are becoming ‘smart’ as more networked systems connect with them and the Internet of Things. There are even events like McGraw Hill Construction ENR’s Future Tech conference that focus on the intersection of technology and AEC.

Yet technology integration has its own challenges. For both small and large firms it is a serious investment of time and resources. Steep software learning curves, problems with data exchange, solutions that don’t perform to expectation, and a growing number of new problems make going back to the old ways not a hard thing to consider. At least there one knows what to expect to go wrong and how to fix it quickly. It also doesn’t help that the industry is constantly approached by technologist and startups selling services and products with no knowledge of industry problems or sensitivity to industry data standards. Plus where are the futuristic building apps that I see in movies or those that use innovative tech like augmented reality or interactive 3D?

It is these reasons and more that prompted me to act upon the idea of a hackathon for the AEC Industry. I can’t think of a better environment where AEC professionals and technologists can come together to build community and create solutions for the industry by those in the industry. And not just as a one time event or to build another iPhone app, but take it up a notch.

Let’s provide hackers with access to the Oculus Rift, Google Glass, LEAP Motion, Kinect, and other innovative hardware. Offer them workshops to learn the latest in API’s, SDK’s (e.g. Intel), web, and interactive 3D standards. We’re raising the bar to ‘AEC goes Iron Man/Tony Stark’ type applications and all tailored to solve real problems.

Thus began my quest to round up a posse and it didn’t take long to get great people on board. Initially stepping up to the challenge were Greg Howes (builder & fabricator), Christopher Peri (architect turned techie), Justin Quimby (game developer rockstar now in AEC), Paul Doherty (architect & smart cities guru) and Michael Shaw (The Digit Group). We have grown into a bigger team of all stars and what an event it is going to be.

For attending tech devs and UX/UI designers, it will be an opportunity to connect and create solutions for those building our real world. For AEC professionals it is a chance to have their voice heard and paint the bullseye for what tech solutions are needed. For those that don’t want to participate in the hack but want to learn something new, we have workshops for them also. Workshops for AEC will cover geo-design, digital fabrication, big data, ‘smart‘ buildings, and other design-build processes and technologies that are changing the industry.

We also have the team at VRcade that has proposed coming down from Seattle to demonstrate some relevant applications in immersive virtual reality for all to experience first hand!

But what would an AEC hackathon be without actually building something? So with that said, there is planned a digital fabrication project that will be happening during the hackathon. The DF Project, as it is currently named, is a showcase project that combines different forms of digital fabrication (including 3D printing and robotic manufacturing) with the latest in web and mobile technology.

This project will be located at Laney College in Oakland and serve as an educational resource that showcases a digitally fabricated structure in addition to digitally fabricated objects housed inside the structure. This project will be a demonstration of how these technologies and others complimentary to the design/build process work together for event attendees and serve as a learning resource for students and AEC professionals both at the college and online. The digital assets of this structure and objects will be available data sets to tech designers and developers at the event to hack with.

Additional proceeds from the event will go to the Wounded Warriors Project and Vets in Tech as we believe in supporting our veterans however we can. Extra proceeds from the Digital Fabrication Project will go to Laney College to support their new digital fabrication course coming next year. What good is having an event like this if you can’t help others along the way?

While it is still a work in progress, the AEC Hackathon is shaping up nicely. We have some great sponsors already (Khronos & Web3D Consortium) and more coming on board that will be announced soon. I truly am honored to be working with such a great team and sponsors to be a part of an industry first that is long overdue. If you would like to support what we are doing, there are ways to get involved. We still need assistance getting the word out to the tech and AEC communities, and additional sponsors means we can have a better event, provide the community with the digital fabrication learning resource project, and have more to contribute to very worthwhile causes we are supporting.

So if you’re a tech developer, UX/UI designer, game programmer, building owner, land developer, city/government official, AEC professional in the office or in the field, and interested in improving the built environment come join us. We need your passion and talent on this journey for creating better tools for those building us a better world. Where will you be Nov 8-10 when the world watches AEC get hacked?