My Role: At the outset of this groundbreaking project I partnered with a technical genius from the team in Toronto, Francesco Iorio. The two of us initially set out to re-invent how every designer is able to design and make. As the science was developing, two others at Autodesk became founding members of the team, Erin Bradner and Michael Bergin. The four of us incubated the technology and our narrative until we were ready to pitch Autodesk CTO Jeff Kowalski and CEO Carl Bass. There are so many people to acknowledge for the success of this effort, but the rest... as they say, is history!
After our successful pitch, we were funded to hire an incredible team of researchers to accelerate the effort and it directly led to the acquisition of The Within team in 2015, led by Tony Ruto. As the Co-Director and executive sponsor, and withTony's help, we eventually were able to integrate the technology into Fusion 360. It was truly a team effort in that our combined team in industry Futures, Computational Design and Research Engineering consisted of a incredible group of researchers, designers and engineers who defined the research problem. developed completely novel science in order to demonstrate a new type of design experience to the world. Our early research collaborators were able to test the prototype to help validate their specific use cases, including Lightning Motorcycles, Mercedes F1, Nasa/JPL and Philippe Starck.
First, there was Generative Design... and now with the popularization of GenAI, designers are able to use machine learning techniques to literally change the way every creative person is able to design and make the world around us. By pursuing research in key areas: AI and Machine Learning, Human Computer Interaction, Robotics, and Simulation, our team combined fundamental research with industry - domain experts in Manufacturing, Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and eventually M&E.
In my founding role as Senior Director of Industry Futures (Design Research, initially), I led the research team tasked with reducing risk and accelerating innovation for Autodesk's products and customers. I pushed us to look outside the company to discover future industry problems, explore possible solutions and apply what we learn across industries. We learned to demonstrate and refine our work via prototypes, physical artifacts and cross-product workflows with customers in order to accelerate design, engineering, construction, manufacturing (and eventually entertainment) industries. This work continues today with the incredible talent within Autodesk Research.
In 2013, Our combined team began demonstrating key advances in science and technology through strategic, industry engagements in Manufacturing. This led to future demonstrations in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction. Working in the Office of the CTO, Francesco Iorio and myself assembled an incredible team of researchers in what would become "Project Dreamcatcher", a groundbreaking approach to multi-objective design optimization. We then used applied research and customer collaborations to increase industry understanding and adoption. In addition to validating industry problems, we were focused on the creation of physical artifacts to demonstrate an engineering grade solution that would have real impact on the manufacturing industry. That is where Anthony Ruto and his incredible Research Engineering team was a game changer, helping us to solve real industry problems with physical (3D printed in metal) solutions that were validated by industry experts.
Over the course of the next decade, we developed key relationships with the worlds leading organizations in response to the worlds most important and challenging problems, including National Labs such as Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge Labs, leading Universities including UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, MIT and UCL and Industry Customers including Mercedes, Nike, Meta, Gensler, Nvidia, Philippe Starck, NASA-JPL, Mercedes F1 and many, many more.
During our later explorations in AEC, we became passionate on improving aspects of design (and construction) that could employ more sustainable materials, lower carbon emissions, reduce the need for fossil fuels and improve the future of the planet. This included low and carbon negative approaches to manufacturing and the built environment, but also new material exploration in organic composites and meta-materials to demonstrate better use and reuse strategies. Finally, with David Benjamin's amazing team in AEC Industry Futures, we employed generative strategies to minimize waste and energy use in both manufacturing and construction with Factory OS.
