Transcript for:
Insights from 3XN Architecture Tour

this video is brought to you by architect Network and our online platform of courses where you can learn from worldclass Architects working in some of the practices that you can see in these videos you can learn grasshopper Revit Rhino inside twin motion and some of our new courses on AI and lots more courses that be delivering over the next year so please if you like this video check out our courses in the link below so we can keep bringing you more content like this what's up guys and welcome back to our architect tours firstly we want to say huge thank you to the response that we've had to the tours this is the first time we've been able to talk to you since we filmed all the London episodes in our content week and because of the response we've decided to come out here to Copenhagen to show you around some of the architecture firms we have here like London it's a hub for architecture and today we're starting at one of the most Danish firms I can think of the building even looks extremely Danish from the outside from the inside it's very Danish it's 3xn and we're going to be talking to Ken claron who is the digital design lead in the office and we're going to be talking to him about their use of Bim computation how they're playing with AI and all the other tools and technologies that they're working with but without any further Ado let's go and take a [Music] look all right guys we're here and 3xn with uh Ken Clauson he's head of digital practice here at 3xn and he's going to show us around maybe give us a little introduction to the office like how many people have you got here incredible office incredible space uh and a little bit about the background of the office yeah welcome uh welcome to Copenhagen to this office here at the space um we are about 150 people in this in this office here today worldwide I think we are maybe around 180 and we are a very mixed group here we have researchers we have interior designers Architects computational designers everything in one house here trying to really avoid having walls so very very much open space which is uh stocking sometimes especially after Corona where everybody is online having meetings so there's of course an interesting struggle here but this is the space we working we've been in this space for almost 10 years now and uh it's it's a listed building it's old it's an old gunboat house uh Factory so what see here when it steps down towards the water they were basically building the ships here and then smashing out in the water afterwards so that's kind of the story and also why it steps down uh from from this level where you enter and then down to the uh to the water at the other end and it is a fantastic space to be in it also is very inspiring because when we are talking about transformation today this is an example of a transformation yeah that has been so much and now it's an office space for us that also always lives in transformation of course with the offices scaling up and down we want a meeting room we want a bigger model Workshop but everything needs to be adaptable here in this space uh let's uh touch on some of these models you got this incredible like exhibition space which is beautifully crafted maybe uh talk us through some of the products and some of the models yeah beautiful crafted now I also like that it's a little bit chaotic around us here that you also see a little bit of process models as well uh but this year is uh a building that is opening up uh in September this year it's uh an arena in the old old the Olympic uh Park in Mich and uh it's an ice hockey and basketball arena very multifunctional Arena and a lot of the things that went into this uh model here is is is is is is sare uper it's scripting it's a lot of things I think one good story that will take out of this that was really new to me is that just after we won competition we were paired up with a with a with the facade contractor fer and immediately we were working with them uh from really having design models that was focused on fabrication so usually we tend to say that our models go all the way to fabrication we know there's many steps down the line but what was very fascinating about this process here was that a lot of the information we got on optimizing our shape came directly from fabrication that's really that's very very was very new process I would say uh models doesn't always have to be 0.0 in tolerance in that world so how do you adjust to that world from digital to analog that was quite fascinating and very interesting process that's really interesting that you actually worked with the contractor at that early stage cuz you don't usually get that and that's where like a lot of magic can happen because you know what you can do what you can't do and it works well scripting you can you can add that into your script or your yeah you I think also maybe to add on this it's also that when when different skill sets meet There's an opportunity to bend the rules both ways so you're learning so much in all of these different uh about a world that you thought you knew a lot about we have been building buildings before but you learn so much about what actually happens in that process yeah and suddenly you can inform with other ideas other processes other ways of looking maybe at math uh geometry all of those layers are suddenly being part of the conversation with the with the manufacturer as well so that was a big learning curve I will also say that the story behind that relationship already is derived from our Olympic building we made in in Lan years before that's where the relationship started and from there on we kind of had a let's say a trusted relationship going forward with the next model here in the next process so again that's like when you start building on that intelligence from the last product is really important yeah I also think what is fascinating here is uh the landscape here and this is maybe a very aesthetical model but the landscape is is is very much uh not to be touched in this Olympic Park which also means that uh when you see some of the footage already down there when you are down there like the playfulness with the facade and how it lifts up and down not that much wayfinding it's the shape itself that tells where you enter and exits and how it also like works and plays with the landscape was both important for us but also for uh for the city of Munich of course to to maintain that kind of story that the that the that the park has is this a bit of a bigger facade mockup yeah that's one yeah that that was uh when we were doing nice facade mockup mockups yeah but this was the test of trying to figure out if you have facade panels like that what is the interface between the inside and outside like how does it work when you have everything from an office space to toilets to yeah so many things inside and how does that affect the outside of the fac started that interplay so this year was very a very interesting exercise to see what does it take to create these facade elements of fins as we call them and how can they be fabricated from Flat sheets so that was the goal all the time to focus on that so the top part is bended and the bottom part is cut out and then welded together because of the strength and the load and how they are B amazing Behemoth just for size wise um um in Europe what was this I'm 1.8 something so that's yeah yeah you go big or you go home is is isn't that the thing uh yeah this one here that's a that's a story of its own it opened two years ago maybe it's uh I think maybe still the biggest transformation done in the in the in the world uh today uh 90% of the core structure is maintained right and then we build on top of that afterwards so that's a quite big uh change to the city and to the building and the reason for this was that uh first of all the the old building was very outdated and there's now we don't have the context around here but there's the water here and the opera house here and then there's a building in front so the idea was with looking at this Tower per se back in the days was to see how can we begin to split up the volume so that we don't uh necessarily only look at the vertical connection but also begin to introduce all of these small almost family uh plots all the way up to the building and it's also kind of finding these rotation views because get views directed away from that building that is in front so that's how the massing is set up I think a big interesting challenge here was that we also have to remember that this process here was back in uh 1617 when everything kickstarted and that's not when that's not uh at a time where you had like a oneclick button from Rhino to Revit and from design to deliver those were the good days these were the Fantastic days that's where you really got an Oscar if you could do an interoperability tool between the two softwares right that was that was that was the good old days today days the EXL days I also say for us that's when we The First Time created our own inability workflow between the two programs from Hardcore coding only coding uh the facade from A to B but this one here per se um actually quite fast went into Revit it is grasshopper generated but very very early after we tried to see how far can we push Revit in kind of the Revit old basic uh world yeah so it was a learning curve for us for good and for bad bad because it it was and still is it was our first Tower so there's a lot of square meters to cover there's a lot of automation possibilities in it but we honestly didn't know what we were getting into so sometimes learning this about bending the rules and learning new stuff is quite nice when we then begin afterwards to set it up in our in our in our workflow here it's incredible you built such I mean it's a big building but you still managed to retain a lot of the existing building that's quite rare for a tower rare for many things I would say but but rare for 100% I think the connections inside and how you work with these models is is very very difficult today we have a world that is not digitalized and that's the world we want to transform so together with Engineers they spend a lot of time developing the digital twin of the old versus mimicking to the new one yeah together with Arab for example finding that kind of sweep spot between what is old what is new what has maybe shifted a lot away from from the from the drawings what are still close up uh I think that's some of the learnings that we're using a lot today start in the basement look how the structure is set and then slowly you build up the knowledge in in the space as you go up and that kind of digital twin uh world is 100% something we are seeing more and more of in our process and the smarter we can get this up and running the better it's still in my mind very analog because there's so much risk and security you need to take on way but learning from this year there's so many opportunities uh going going forward also with transformation projects uh yeah and this was just uh like at Big scale of course and this year is maybe a medium scale office but it it kind of runs on the same uh on the same levels of respecting what is new what is old and how you merge those two worlds together that's incredible product one thing I got to ask you is I always see with your work and I'm seeing here there's like a lot of parametric facades I see there's like a a lot of really nice subtle movements talk to me about like how do you guys work with computational facades is it like environmentally driven is it kind of Aesthetics like how do you guys get into the facades with computation I think to answer that I have to step a little bit back and say that nothing here starts with technology first is all of the Visions about the program uh the users the context all of these layers are just as important for us so that research like starts even before all of the projects that you see here and it can be shape driven it can be climate driven it can be there's so many layers to that process here and yes we are using Rhino grass up or scripting to develop those ideas but in I'll say the first many rounds it can also be simple copy pasting around exploring your techniques that's also a little bit how I see a computational design it is part of your toolbox and it depending on how not only skilled you are but also how driven you are and how idea generating let me say definitely you can cut it out also how um everyone today knows how to work with those Tools in my opinion I have the ability to work and learn those tools so what is then the difference today that's the person sitting in front of the screen that comes with the inspiration the ideas the collaborating with all of these different skill sets in here and that's where it starts and yes there's maybe a a clear a clear method of how we approach facad in here but some of the things we try to keep very very subtle is the movements in the shape we don't want to go uh crazy in in shapes in and out and forming it too much the small subtle movements that enough for us so that the building itself explains what it is and what it can do and I think that's what I mean you I always see you guys have these really nice subtle like movements in the facade and the building and it's it's super nice but I think your point on like it always starts with the design and computation is just a tour that's a reoccurring theme that we're always trying to like illustrate to the audience that it's not just like a magic button people pressed as it's like a tool to sadly I think it is becoming that in some s we are becoming so fast and smart that we maybe have lost a little bit of agility and flexibility and also having a little bit of fun with things it becomes almost too much a goal to optimize and make it smarter instead of just making it work and making it functional and making it part of a full project I think but also encapsulates this when you say computational design for me it has been been a statement for years that if you're a computational designer you also have designer in your title please remember that uh and and that kind of dialogue I think is very important in our process that we don't really see that you have a p specific uh process uh and a specific mindset here we like that you are different we like that that you U that you approach the sign differently and I think that's the strength in this office or at least how I why I enjoy today here is that you can ask one question and then you get so many different answers because people maybe don't know that they are breaking the rule or asking a weird question but it just inspires you it's so B to talk to your own like reflection every day and talk to only a Technology Group but this about having the opportunities to talk to sustainability Engineers or very very skillful detail construction Architects or talking to finance and operations there's so many questions that pops into your mind oh we could also do it like that there's suddenly a tool that we were developing in a facade but the method behind can suddenly be applied to a a plugging we're doing for the operations in here and I think that's the quality about having these skill sents mix and mats in all of those different projects super nice yeah I think your point on your comp compal designer is another great Point like some of the best computational people are great at computation but they're also great designers exactly exactly but I think it's fair to say that it is okay to to also be a problem solver like Problem Solver and design solver sometimes come in the same package and sometimes they are very much split but then it's up to us to create the relationships where they can meet and Inspire each other in that process and and I think that's uh that's maybe a hope where we are going towards again that the technology becomes a bridge between people at the moment has been very much focused on getting smarter getting faster making everything real time which is interesting and and and and cool for scalability but for uh for the design and all of those ideas uh I'm a little bit afraid we're becoming very similar to many many other companies maybe we all have found the right way or or we are looking at the same sources today I I don't I don't know what it is but the but that zist of uh social media and online maybe AI is the answer to us out of that all right guys we're joined by Sam Sweeney who's head of Bim here at 3xn and maybe talk a little bit about your role as head of Bim and I know you're also involved in this product as well perfect uh thanks OE nice to have you in the office finally um so yeah I'm headed beam here at 3xn um what that mainly entails is how we can take our our beautiful designs in the early stage and kind of harness those and keep the architecture whilst we create B models that they to hopefully get built in the built environment so that's what we're focused on here and try to do that in the most efficient way and uh not damaging the uh the architecture while we take hold of it spanning that world between Rhino and grasshopper and exactly exactly I guess that's a big Focus here at 3xn where we we don't exclusively work in Revit we're very much a rhino focused office um and obviously a lot of the sort of Bim stuff we do also touch which is on Rhino and early phase design so using a lot of grasshopper Rhino um rhino inside and scripting was there a certain point you guys move into Bim like a because I used big we used to work soon as anything comes out concept it goes into Revit do you guys have like a certain point or can it be anywhere um it's getting earlier and earlier that's we we're definitely focusing on and obviously you have buildings like tall buildings that we you've looked at today like tofa or Q obviously moving into Revit earlier is advantageous when you're working across Towers if it say a small Art Gallery maybe we keep that in Rhino longer because we we're just producing plans in 2D um doing sketch Rhino models but obviously when we want to we have a whole stack of say 30 40 levels which are repetitive or changed say four times it's easier to to produce and make mass changes in Revit and we're also seeing a lot of the sort of transformation projects um we're working on now we have a lot of um surveys existing buildings and having this sort of common data environment to to house all of that is quite important for us everyone sort of working from like one source of Truth rather than having lots of multiple models around and that's um another reason why we're trying to move into Bim earlier there's no fixed kind of time it's just on a project by project basis when um the skill sets of the staff and the project requirements demand it yeah well let's uh let's talk about this product I got a little a fun little pointer for the audience because I'm sort of very familiar with this area because for those of you watch the big London episode you might have seen there was a construction site out the window well this is it and the original big London office was this corner here so uh we're quite familiar with the site uh and now you guys are building this thing in uh in London which which is pretty cool but uh yeah talk to us about uh about this guy yeah so um this is right in the middle of London um where sort of all the big towers have been going up over the past 10 15 years um and I personally worked on this from the design phase through to sort of when we handed over to our our local Architects so that was working in in rhino focused on the facade so working in Rhino having a sort of a grasshopper model to help us quickly iterate and then to sort of help us to look at what all the panel types were and then moving on to our third stage so stage three when we moved into rev in this instance um when we had to create a Bim or a Revit based model then to work with the engineers and our local Architects um I think what was nice about this is when we're creating say this Rhino or grasshopper model we didn't create it in silus we didn't create a rhino model then just Chuck it away then create a Revit model when we're making our Rhino or by extension grass model we were already embedding the intelligence in that to help us kind of somewhat automate the creation of our Revit model so trying to not see there two distinct things but how we can I guess leverage off one stage to help us make um a more efficient and more accurate next stage yeah and that was that worked really well was there any kind of tools that you guys were playing with to go back and forth I know it's like Rhino inside or beam and that kind of stuff was there once so Rhino inside was really heavily used on this so basically what what we did is we had this really nice modeling grasshopper after the second stage and we kind of could identify all of the data for each panel so we knew what level it was where it was in terms of um each of the two volume Stacks what sort of index it was along and then we knew Heights what type it was these angled Cuts we knew the angle so we had say I think it was about 15 data points then um I went and made all the the Revit families for that um long process I'll get on to beam you can't then I'll get on I'll get on to beam about that after so then when I could then automatically place I think it was about £6,000 we had automated the process of placing all of these panels a very typical thing to to do and then we could then drive the angles of each of these so then when we actually had a change in our design and the angles would change slightly rather than manually going and changing them which is time consuming and also at risk of error we could just automatically Drive the angle changes across that which was really nice ni yeah um we didn't use Beam on this but then uh I was really happy with the model but it took a long time and when you're often just handing it over to a local architect and there and they will rebuild it for instance you're kind of like why did I do that so then on subsequent jobs we're now looking at how we can just use beam to get the sort of minimal viable product so we have all of our geometry there but we're not making it a sort of um computationally smart as what this one was so yeah it was Rhino inside that opened our eyes to beam essentially I like that that's a good line it's a good line and just give us like overview what is the product is it mixed use Office residential uh yep so it's an office tower um office in both both Towers um kind of the nice thing is there's a Winter Garden in the in the central space just here um which is AC was originally across two heights now only across one one single hybrid obviously in in London I guess in the summer or the winter you want to be outside but in winter it's obviously a bit cold so this this should hopefully capture a lot of um light so have some heat then you can see there's amazing views out over London yeah in this area here so yeah it's um it's now on site um hole has been dug yeah I'm very familiar with um hole and hoarding will'll be there for a few years and then yeah and um hopefully be a very good addition to the the London Skyline it's done you'll definitely get epic views from here cuz you you I think it'll be amazing yeah and then obviously what's really nice is these big open open Cuts here um which are big like open open areas with the the spell staircases cafes breakout spaces um which I think could be really effective and this this sort of ground Lobby um area that that links links the two roads over here is a really beautiful space as well um yeah it's a very um it's very interesting to work on um I think from a technology point of view it was one that taught us a lot taught us positive things and also I guess things that we could improve that we' we've Now put on to other projects uh highrises in London and other projects are working on so this is one of our first ones that really opened our eyes to what was possible with these sort of new technologies which are coming out see in the last few years so this is this is our this is our model Workshop this is where all of the models uh are being created we do everything internally uh the office is located in a very creative neighborhood so we have the art and and architecture school just over here as a neighbor so there's a close collaboration between us and then our our model Workshop where we have a lot of interns coming in helping out on on models and depending of course on uh on deadlines and uh and if it's boosting up and down they come in and help and get the learning experience and are creating quite a lot of these amazing models I have say it's one of the most like uh Sleek organized workshops we've seen oh that that's a if is that good or bad that's a good thing yeah yeah but uh I think for this for this mod Workshop we kind of covered the basics and then a little bit more yes we have a 3D printer but when we want to print bigger uh sizes we have a collaboration in town and that's usually how we do it when we go big we find collaborations or else we build a lot of the models you saw in in the entrance we build all of those in here so there's a bunch of different laser cutters in the back and uh yeah the usual suspect knife cutter as well that works even faster and more cleaner analog and digital again back to the analog digital that's a little bit of my uh my focus area please never forget the analog world I hope that people are still remembering we are building for that world even though we like to go more digital we listening to the metaverse I have another opinion about that but uh I think it's important to remember that world a little bit sometime sometimes we can't forget it you can be drawn into solving your geometry puzzle and then you have completely forgotten the analog world of how does a material touch how do they join together do they not join together I think that's a quite a quite important mindset you have go out kick the mockups if they don't work fig out why they don't work listen to The Fantastic uh skilled people that are manufacturing this and try to figure out how the interface is then with your next iteration and your next iteration is there a particular like uh technology you've seen adopt more in the workshop like 3D printing or even orary reality to help that kind of stuff do you see any kind of Technology that's really thrived in the workshop it seems like it's always a little bit back to the basic for us and that is the laser cutter and the knife cutter and starting from the sheet and then creating that a little bit more volumetric of course we use 3D printing where that is needed and when it when it fits in but I think for us the materialization of models is more where has changed a lot you had the the the the super wide polish models then you went a little bit more into almost a rainbow of colors and now we' have moved a little bit more into clean uh balanced Timber materials that are mixed with some more wide clean materials so I think it depends a little bit on where you are in time and and who are responsible for what projects uh that it ranges a lot so I'll more say on materials than than on the adopting new technology uh I was hoping that more and more mixed realityy are coming in here but it seems like it's still waiting for that perfect push and um I have a little bit of a hope that uh the mixed reality for us maybe is not so much about the fabrication inhouse but it could be a layer on top of our models so that when you go out and present your models you don't need to do a billion of boards or a booklet and then you have your clients and and and and visitors trying to navigate between having a board here and then you model here but everybody has their phone why is that not creating that interface on top I think that that could be interesting and and and a future way of explaining and working with models that you pair those two words overlay all cool I think more that's the story than the technology itself yeah all right we're here with cor head of innovation and a partner here at 3xn um why don't you give us a little bit of an overview of what is the Innovation team or or department and uh this pretty epic looking column we go here sure yeah no thanks uh thanks for coming here and uh you're now visiting gxn so we are the uh research and Innovation company that was spun out of 3xn Architects in 2007 uh gxn was put into the world with the realization that there's a lot of resource Innovation that can happen from within architecture projects there's also a lot of stuff that can't happen so architecture project is Big there's a lot of money involved there's a lot of Partners and in the environment risks scale quickly so you don't get to test out an experimental new material at scale for example you don't get to play around too much with new technologies that you don't really understand uh and maybe you don't get to explore the same problem over and over again uh because uh you know projects change and some projects have different requirements yeah so gxn was really spun out to enable us to do all the stuff The Architects don't get to do so we get to uh get very excited and play around and test out new materials and we do that through uh collaboratively funded research projects so external funding material providers technology providers try and help them think about what their Technologies or materials mean for the build environment increasingly we are also starting to uh sell these activities as commercial consultancy sitting next to 3xn on projects so we're trying to bring the learnings we have from the research side into large scale projects uh with 3xn and with other partners so we can have an impact at scale that's cool I know I never fully knew the relationship between the two but it's quite uh interesting it's a it's a very yeah no it's we is a good mix and I think the key thing here is is a very close collaboration um we by having these two different companies we can basically look at the same challenges in two slightly different ways H that allows us to come up with more comprehensive answers and and explore a bit more different types of solutions so increasingly gxn is supporting 3xn in the early stages helping them do research around how to improve sustainability of their buildings uh I'm sure Ken has talked about some of our transformation projects for example that's that's an example of a very close collaboration where the 3xn architecture team and the gxn research team is really trying to join forces and and help our clients and developers think about how to approach the projects they have in a new way that's interesting so you're you're r& ding in a trickling directly down into products basally that's the aim and and we we love to do experimental projects like this one but but overall the key for us is that we have an impact on the industry as a whole and we want to make sure that we can improve uh the environmental footprint of our buildings while also ensuring that the life and experience of people in the buildings is is taken care of very cool maybe talk to us about this uh I can yes so this is colum or this is an example of something that's definitely uh more towards the R&D Camp than than the commercial consultancy camp but this is a this is called bio concrete it's a collaboration between gxn an American company called biomason that does biocement and a Danish artist called seu the project was part of a larer exhibition here in Copenhagen which was trying to take experimental materials and by using Architects and artist and collaborations try and think about what these materials could be so so the key material here is is what's called biocement so this column looks and well sort of looks but certainly acts like a concrete column as you know the main sort of key active component in concrete is cement cement requires heating to very high degrees of of the base material so it emits a lot of CO2 bio cement on the other hand works with mineralization based on biological processes so the way this column has been bound together is by having an Aggregate and pouring a mixture mix of biomason of course over that um and enable in the um bi organisms in that mixture to work and over 72 hours these organisms through their metabolism have mineralized uh basically creating new material and then binding all the aggregate in the column together and here we have this this this product here so when we were getting involved um biomason exists as a commercial project but but we are talking at the scale of of tiles okay and right now we are exploring and so what we were exploring here was you know what would happen if we scale that up you know how how big might we be able to go it's of course Very experimental and and there's a lot of challenges still to get something like this into the building but I think what it does is is it enables us to explore what the commitment to decarbonizing of the build environment really means and and play around with with a super interesting company and a fun artist and see where this might take us that's amazing I've never heard of uh bio concrete before so learning something new today that's great uh I mean one of the key things with with with stuff like this is of course that that we can take something that that can be quite abstract yeah decarbonization of the build environment and and make a very tangible and visible story which which is also part of the work we do you know we need to help each other uh think through and tell new stories about what we want to do without buildings I'm guessing so it's significantly got a much lower carbon footprint than concrete uh what are the constraints right now I'm assuming does it take it takes a lot longer to cure for example curing time for this has been 72 hours uh so not not massively no uh the key challenges here is that this hasn't been tested or proven at this scale so if we wanted to bring this further we need to figure out how to uh how how the mixture binds with um with Reba or other reinforcement for example you need to figure out how the column deforms under pressure and all these sort of things that would make it possible to put in the scale so right now this is this is very much in the realm of of an art project yeah uh but but um you know who knows where this will take us in the future very cool yeah the fish market is is a is a scale on its own I would say if I start from scale so we get a perspective on this tiny model here this measured measures 100 m wow by 200 M so that equals if you have three soccer fields and put them on top then you then you are beginning to get the scale of the project wow and from uh column to column uh we span from 20 to 30 m so that's huge spans in this project and it's as said it's the new fish the Sydney fish Market in Sydney where you have the boats coming in with the with fish from here and then you have below more the auction Hall holes and all of the life that a fish market usually have and then on top it's packed with the restaurants and and offices and that that exay into it so everything from from from restaurants to um to to private like like people are coming here to buy the fish to eat and it's becoming a new land land market replacing the old Fish Market uh and now they want something new and is it uh a timers Timber structure or like what's the yeah the model here doesn't represent the full subst structure full sub structure but it is a Timber temper structure uh hybrid in that sense that all of the columns that are coming up are steel so the joints themselves are steel but all of the the the roof basically 90% of the roof is Timber there's certain places where we needed to add steel because of the function below but the rest is is Timber and I set when when you have Timber measuring that long distances some of them are quite tall so we are talking like a 30 mters and 1.9 meter tall uh columns to to hold this roof up and on top here we have a skylights that are letting kind of the light through and I will say this here really represents the layer between 3xn and gxn and how we collaborate together this has been a collaboration from day one and and and and it still is today now we are on site there's a lot of things happening on site but as a starting point uh this curved roof here is not curved only for fun it has a lot of additional climate studies on top of it and one of the key aspects we looked at first and we were told by the engineers that when it rains in Sydney it rains a lot yeah and if you imagine having this as a flat roof water will not be able to go anywhere and everything will crash so we in the early days started developing our our own like simple particle simulation tools that could help predict and guideline the surface a little bit and we managed to find after a lot of iterations a point where we have two areas in the in on the roof where all of the water are collected and that goes down and is reused in the building and also for watering all of the plants around and all of the the nature wow so so that's one of many collaborations where you really see that impact of having so many different skill sets at the office really really really comes true in that project and this is one of many stories I will say the second story that has been very difficult for me personally dealing with this geometry and this project here is scale mhm and uh we speak about uh mixed reality we speak about mockups we speak about so many things but to really understand sitting in that tiny screen the scale of this project is very difficult but the Fantastic thing is that when we are in this space here and if you look up it's maybe a little difficult we can we can show a little bit later you have these triangles at the end of uh of the view here that measures one of the two or 300 skylights on this roof here so that was my reference all the time looking at these skylights and understanding okay this is the scale when I have a person standing next to next to it and and that's a little bit interesting when you're working with technology today you losing so much scale how do you get that back into to to your into your process even looking at the model way it doesn't I like it's probably bigger in in reality yeah it could look like something that is just placed here around the harbor and that's it right uh but it's not the Copenhagen Fish Market it's the Sydney Fish Market uh do but that's that's that's quite a lot of layers to this uh to this project here and I think one of the learnings we are seeing today is also working with Timber as a structur material we are moving in my opinion a little bit away from working with surfaces that all of our models are doing when we work with IFC when we work with all of the object based models we're always looking at the surface and the objects but I think as Architects we need to understand that the connections and joints are becoming our new new detail area our new Focus area because else we will give that magic away to Engineers that will quickly come up with a solution I think that's something that we have learned in this project when we have all of these beam come beams coming in from so many directions and in so many angles uh how do how do you map that how do you create a nice detail out of that how do you learn about sequencing what do you put in first so you not suddenly can't put in the last piece I think some of those learnings in in in our timer team is something that we focusing quite a lot of a lot on after we have been working on this this project for many many years now yeah there's a real growing Trend in Timber construction and we see it in some of the other firms but it gives you a really nice control over some of those details yeah and and personally me also having to Flack here I'm a huge geometry lover in all ways and and for me the method has always been and that maybe also relates to to to the Bim workflow we talked about earlier that for me geometry is texture its shape its grits and then it's data and if those are linked together I think the magic happens there but for me it also represents that you have somebody who are material experts as we heard in gxn before and making them working with tech and data and geometry I think that's where the fish market really represents all all of the skills in the office and and just in general as well so that's been an amazing am in project that hopefully will open within like the next one and a half years they're installing the the timber structure here in the next coming month or two so that's going to be interesting to see how that how that pays off but yeah awesome project yeah it's it's a fantastic one uh and also where you can see that our sustainability Engineers that we have on board as well really have an impact to these processes as well when it comes to all of the layers that you can think of of climate simulations is put into to this project here yeah but it's it's pretty cool here and then yeah you can see the kayak Club is there and then yeah we have a couple of other there some fashion offices down there and things but I think here what is quite amazing is that we have the ability to go and have lunch here every day or when I say every day every day when there's some good weather here in here in Denmark but another thing is also that because we have water here and when the wind changes the water rises and it can sometimes get up to uh maybe uh maybe up to 20 or half a meter up here so that's why we need heavy doors that needs to be closed at night because some some sometimes you can out when you come come at work and you can't see the tables they basically just in the water so that's why they all connected so they don't uh float away I don't know what that yeah so you have a waterproof office we have a waterproof office uh but it it is quite amazing to sit out here because here usually the Sun at around 12 yeah is perfect because it hits here yeah and that's why the parties are always here after hours because that's where the sun is afterwards uh but it's a it's it's a pretty amazing place to also go and have meetings sometimes when the weather gets a little bit better it's not that long it's not that far to just go out in here and have the meeting instead do you have anyone in the office that commutes by boat H not by boat but we but we had we had one some that came with the the the kayak from the office yeah but now with the Kay Club next door of course you can see already some there but there's also the what they call these Canal can Canal these boats Canal boats yeah so you have to sit here five times a day and wave hello they're coming and yeah then over here they used you just jump in the water here it's it's maybe not the most cleanest base here but when there's a party going on and the the weather is nice then we just jump in jump in yeah yeah so it's pretty uh pretty amazing and uh and you got Co Coen Hill yeah Co Hill that's to view yeah and then out here you can see the big uh industry buildings that's also where where Reon and all of that's re out there that's where all of the places are will where you guys are going also for Mi and stuff that's out there as well all right Ken thank you so much for the Epic talk in this amazing space uh I think we're we're blown away um so thank you for your time let's get into some technology talk I know you're you've got some good uh points we want to touch on uh maybe start by giving us like an overview of what is the digital design or design technology I know different people name it different things how does that work in dxn the office and also how do you work with the projects and the teams like do people just come and tap you on the shoulder and say I've got this problem or that problem uh how do you guys work was a a long question at the that deserves a long answer um around uh two or three years ago uh we made a little bit of a decision internally we had a a design technology team in our gxn uh research uh cluster but uh we saw an issue happening that was a positive issue we saw many of our our employees were showing skills and fantastic curiosity in technology grasshopper all of those ual suspects uh around technology also a little bit more Cod we began to see in in more and more of your emplo employees so we took a decision and uh decided to explode it all and decided to say technology is part of everyone here we are all part of the digital workflow and instead of having a group we now believe that everyone kind of can tap into that it is still I think a little bit in a work in progress but it means that we have a couple of ambassadors in here that are of course steering the conversation and the collaboration but we really want to emphasize the opportunity of having different skill sets meet so for example Sam that you met on the tour and me we are a couple of these ambassadors that try to tap and Link into all of these different interesting conversations but we see a way bigger bigger potential in having no groups and more skill sets in the conversation so if I have a weird idea about looking at for example data scanners and how that works in here we can begin to tap into some of the people who are skilled in code and some of the sustainability experts we can find all of these collaborations inhouse and I think I'm more believe in that and I've thought a little bit about that question in the last couple of years and I've been wondering a little bit how does a a design technology team or group look like today and tomorrow what is the demands for such a group like if it's about that you can code I have a feeling we are going to sit eight chpts and then two humans in those groups in the future because everyone will in some way become more and more technological savvy so I think the strength is maybe taking some of those specialist knowledge and putting them into a generalist mindset so that's a little bit more the overview of how things are set up here in terms of how we work yes there is of course the tapping on the shoulder if there's some issues here and there but I think it's also very much project dependent uh so it never starts with the technology first it starts with the project the idea or where we want to go with it then we have a generic layer of tools and methods and people that are skilled in certain directions but uh I personally also believe that you need to give a little bit of U of confidence to those people sitting in those projects and being able to steer them a little bit on their own and then you're just checking in if if if it doesn't work or or just checking in if it goes okay I think I'm more believer in that today than uh than having these groups as we had before that was also really really fun and very late night as and a lot of hacking but this kind of broad perspective helps me a lot in my daily daily life to have all of these interesting conversations so rather than having a giant Bim team and a giant computational team it's more about having a few people that can empower the designers to use these tools or you know learn Revit or grasshopper or whatever it is yeah and I think you you hit spot on of course there is sometimes a little bit of discussion about the Christmas tree and the hierarchy of knowledge uh and you really would like to take not to take the level on top down and then Bridge it out but you need somehow to find a middle ground where we get everyone slowly on board here and yes some of us can code and when we sit and talk to people who can code it's not fair to compare those but you can slowly get those in through projects um and I think we only going to see more and more of those collaborations in projects as we go forward because everyone uses the same software and I've also said around on the tour that the emphasis is not on the software anymore it's the person who ask the questions like how do I want to use this how do I want to explore this how do I want to develop this the thinking behind the process is still the primary thing I I personally believe even though I'm a hardcore believer in Tech and in in all of those fantastic things it offers I I I hope that it's still the humans who who drive the the ship in here and also going forward and trying to find the balance between all of these new interesting and scary offers we have on the table out there you touched on any on your answer there but we're all using the same stuff and we've asked we've been asking people the same question which is a super broad simple question of what are the softwares you use in the office and we're literally talking about you know Rhino Revit grasshopper and all these things just to illustrate to some young architects in the in the audience that always have these questions what software do these firms use so give us an overview of of what you guys use afraid of repeating but yeah it's Rhino and grass up of course it's Revit it is um nscap it is vray both in Rhino and in 3D Studio Max depending on who is the user it is the full Adobe package and as I mentioned before uh we more believe in many different skill sets than uh than having these group of specific people uh everything in that adobe package package is used from the photo photographer maybe using more Premier Pro to somebody who's using more illustrator in the diagr magic world so it's it's a wide range of this in code we basically are using Python and HTML okay and that's both to linking all of our Technologies together but HTML to get a lot of the stuff on the web now and tapping more into that so I think that's our coding base but I heard something quite interesting lately and I dare to say that we also are using chat DBT like everyone else and uh it again comes back to how good you are in prompting but uh there's people in here who are becoming so skilled in in in those prompt models that they don't know how to script but they have created their own two bars anyway I think that's quite interesting so I have to say that that kind of uh of Technology breach that is coming now with AI is something we are tapping into and my answer maybe in two years will be a little bit different or maybe in in two months but some of those more common things we of course also exploring but um that's the full package yeah I think you're right like with we won't go down the the rabbit hole of AI yet but these things like large anguage models mean that coding becomes so much more accessible yeah 100% uh I will also say that I think it's important that to highlight that we of course use very a lot of different CL climate simulation tools uh a full range of those and it comes both in using some of the good plugins that we all use in in grasshopper uh like ladybug and all of those days climate Studio but we're also beginning to tap into outo desk fora and looking a little bit at the speed and behaviors and how that works out so some of these uh these tools we also use heavily in our in our teams you know you can see in a lot of your work and we talked about it in the during the tour that you have this use of computational design uh because you're clearly using it as part of your design process you're also utilizing Bim you're getting a lot of products built these days uh how do you manage between this world of Bim and computation uh not only the tools that you use to go between it but within the team and also upskilling the designers like are they spending more time in one or the other like how are you balancing this Bim world with the computational world Bim for me is a methodology that uh that does a lot of good it uh it is good in organizing controlling the project it's good in having a full overview and it's good in tapping into all of the different stakeholders and models in the process uh but I also feel that uh computational design has both a negative and a positive effect to that process if I talk about the positive things that has come out of adding more and more computational tools into into Bim uh it's of course controlling all of our geometry and all of the pipelines as we as as Sam mentioned before it is about maybe making people aware that your model has several lives and it can coexist in so many different worlds it doesn't need to be specifically in a rhino or Revit World it can exist in I love Excel it can exist in code it can exist in so many different formats and I think those computational tools and methods help us to do that especially in Bim where it Brides more and more but I will also dare to say here that for me computational design is also about a design exercise and how you elaborate on that and I've touched on it also in our tour around and I see a lot of the computational efforts put into Bim is more focusing on optimization and Automation and super super fair and super super super important for again making sure that we don't end up in all of the same issues that we all have had over the projects over the years yeah so the more we can get help the smarter we can do it the better it is but when you talk about computational design as as as a yet another thing in in the toolbox I feel there's so many more layers to it and I feel there's also resolutions of it uh it's about value it's about the value it creates for your process the value you're creating for your team and the creat the value you're creating for the projects so tapping into to all of these models in Grasshopper And code doesn't make any sense if it doesn't have a value to whatever you want to to to create so I think there's some kind of of optimistic thing in that process of just trying it out trying it out letting it break accepting that the curves are not clean but we still have an opportunity to break it while when we get further down the line it needs to be more refined it needs to have a perfect data layer the structures needs to be correct so I think there's a positive and negative in those processes but the more we learn the better and the more we in my personal opinion provoke and dare to challenge the default the better it is for moving forward sometimes somebody else maybe thinks it's it's annoying but that's at least how I see it and computational methods is a is a good partner in crime for for provoking and and disturbing a little bit the balance in here yeah maybe to continue on that note of computational design and utilizing in the office is there an area of compation where you see it impact it offers the most whereas like such as just simply geometry control automation simulation is there one that you see is having the biggest impact in the office for you guys yeah I've have have witnessed it on myself over the years and I've seen many others with success and fail on this but for me computation design is maybe tapping a little bit more into this control I see computational design and the person or person sitting and having that opportunity to to control a project is quite interesting and key to learning a lot and what I mean is that when you sit with those models you are working with everything from the skilled facade um expert to somebody who is good in plans and you have the ability to be the middle person or the the the person in the middle handling all of those different informations into your model I think that's a fantastic opportunity to always be a little bit in the driver seat of course you're not maybe being the one who are handling the GPS and the coordinates all the time but being being able to to to control all of these instances in a project is maybe the first thing I would add to this the second one is that by having this control and understanding of your your methods computationally you also have the ability to understand when to use what tool and when I think that's two strength for me in this if you talk about simulation and those aspects I think they are sub layers to the process as a whole but for computational point of view I think this kind of like really being the one who is in charge of the the the the geometry and the project has a big impact to how we work and tap into different workflows okay so one thing that we've obviously been asking everyone as we go around is the fomo Hot Topic of AI right now um give us an overview like are you guys experimenting with AI in what way how are you guys playing with AI in the office right now yeah that that is a that is a foo thing that is going on here but uh it has a big impact in all industries that there's no doubt also in ours and we have done all of the mistakes possible in my opinion uh just going all in on Tech trying to see what comes out of it and realizing that we don't know what problem we solving we're just trying it out I think it's healthy to do but you end up in a corner where you don't really know where your context is and I think all of the tools and applications that are showing so many interesting things are not finding their way into our process yet we have tried it and errored it you know the image generators the plan generators and all of those things but I've not not really found away at the moment and one thing that we realized in our research on this one here is that we need to step a little bit back so we have in-house here what we call a digital task force and that task force represents basically um the machine room to the boardroom from floor to VIP basically so it covers strategy it covers uh processes on the floor it covers everything in between and it is about monitoring the technology in the industry and how it both affects the industry and us and our process and how we look at this is that we have a monthly meetings on it and then in between there's a lot of things happening but our time frame is one to three month and 1 to three years so we're really trying to to see what can affect us now and what will affect the office and culture and and how we move forward later and by doing that it helped us a little bit in stepping back so we decided to say what is the best way of getting data points in so in a low Tech world we uh invited all of the partners the business uh development and unation into workshops and interviews a little bit like this year not with everybody in in one room that will not work at all so we statistically took maximum three people into a room and allowed to steal one hour of the time and have had three questions we recorded it and we gathered so many data points and the questions were first it was about who are we as a company if you describe 3xn gxn how would you describe us and it's already interesting to see how different partners and Communications and and and and and BD are looking maybe a little bit differently on it then we had a 40 minute chunk where it's about the process it doesn't have to be digital it can be analog all of the things that are good bad and ugly yeah and then we had 10 minutes in the end talking a little bit about more about what is the Visions both for the industry and for 3xn gxn in your point of view and it gave us so many aspects on looking at at at Ai and Technology from human research point of view to finance point of view to design process point of view and this has helped us a little bit now to to navigate kind of our second round at this one here so one of the some of the things we have installed in a trialing an err and is of course is of course chbt and those prompts but looking at the infrastructure we already have it for us would be difficult to scale out chat TBT so we for example take co-pilot in from Microsoft and see it's not matured at all in my opinion but it maybe have some kind of like some steps on the way to go but when they get the market place up and running maybe there's some opportunities there we use also co-pilot in GitHub so sitting in visual code and scripting you have a best friend now you don't need to stack Overflow or spend a lot of hours in Google anymore for me that that's a dream coming true and I can see a lot of our coders here are using that quite heavily uh we are tapping more and more into and how I see maybe the tools that we're using is more tools that already exist in our platforms so some of these AI driven tools that exist in illustrator and Photoshop that basically comes in from the side where we we use a lot and then I will say that there's something interesting happening in the simulation world that uh will change while we speak here now we've just just had a meeting with ncape again about their Innovation team and what they are seeing as the future of visualization and the future of collaboration and what I found quite interesting in those conversation is that there's a discussion between speed and position in the game at the moment and I'm very curious to see the more speed we at the more scalability it will get especially in simulation and climate in simulation will that find its way back to all of the designers in a way faster way what will happen there do do they know how to read the data that they're getting out so I think there's something interesting in those models and especially also in inscape where their impact impact analysis model they are getting in here so I'll say these are more the topics that we're looking at but um I'm I'm I'm standing a little bit of holding back here not because I love Tech but because I have this this this thing that that the internet uh kind of democratized information for good and for bad yeah and I feel that AI at the moment is democratizing knowledge for good and for bad and I think there's something very interesting on the horizon in terms of disruption disrupting a lot of the industries also the architectural industry and and yes I know maybe some of the partners and the companies listening into this here but I think it's very healthy that the architectural industry maybe are getting a little bit disrupted now maybe it's a way of us finding our way now in the future of the world instead of keep remembering the steps that we took on the way maybe there's an opportunity here maybe we got lost in some Teck that we can't see yourself out of at the moment I think there's some very interesting more organizational structures that will happen are we going to see a completely new service area that is not going to be these beautiful buildings maybe there's another service area that we're tapping into um so there's many things but what I'm told every day and what I really like I always remember this quote from one of the partners is that an architect still need to understand how to draw a plan a section and an elevation and I think that's the fundamentals to to keep in mind uh when looking at at this year do we need something that can automatically create a plan for us or do we actually need co-pilots that can help us to think a little bit smarter and in that dialogue let's see what happens so um so that's a little bit of a board talk and a more specific uh no I think you talk some really great points I think like a one you know General theme we keep seeing is like the integration of AI is really about amplifying what we do as Arctic maybe automating some of the stuff the more boring stuff that we spend time doing so we can spend more time on the actual design thinking where we we add value I think we're kind of getting a little bit distracted by you know sexy generated images plans that are just you know somewhat created like that uh but it's still really the thinking behind it which is where we have value yeah the thinking one and the data number two um maybe I'm going a little bit off scrip in terms of AI and and what else but uh we we lately got a little bit interested interested in data more to say that we found out that uh it is quite expensive to have data on our servers MH and it creates a big big carbon footprint uh to have all of this in store servers are expensive all the files all of the files all of the stuff and usually if you have an apartment of 80 square meters and at one point you simply don't have enough space anymore you start cleaning up how do you clean a a 40y old company up with so many Legacy stuff uh I think that's a quite interesting question so what we did is that we developed our own data storage scanner that are simply every week scanning all of the behaviors and Trends in the office to see how much are we polluting uh gigabyte and carbon wise uh how much are we saving what is the trends and we are maybe seeing a little bit of a change here it seems like people are really engaged in changing their behavior of how to model and model clean and that's where I can be a little bit afraid when we generating so much with the AI tools that go so fast we again ending up in an in a nightmare of iterations instead of just focus focusing on the one or two or three trees that looks beautiful out there uh but it's a quite interesting setup at the moment that maybe it's a little bit cited on AI but but Behavior wise it's changing a lot of the things in here and maybe I'm finally going to see a clean model designed that goes directly all the way through from A to B because they can see that all of the content the assets all of the things used in there are so smartly designed and and created there a really nice point I haven't heard anyone talk about lowering your carbon footprint through how much you know storage you're taking up on your service that's that's a really interesting point it's a good motivation to make sure design is yeah because suddenly it's not cool to be on top now you actually want to be in the bottom 10 that are the ones that are not polluting the most but I think from a from a model point of view and a healthy point of view we were discussing is there an AI that can go and clean everything up but there's not we need to get the data points correct to be able to sort and create all of those uh those things but but let's see how it goes I'm open-minded but uh but I'm more curious about the bigger layers of the industry as a whole the education layer I think hn is a good platform like like others out there that have the opportunity to um to change the game to create education for people who sits sit in projects and not people who sit in school of course that's also good but that's way not thing I'm nervous about in in the education layer when it comes to that that it runs so fast out there but Academia and project still has the same timeline yeah and that's going to be interesting to see how that will will change because it have to in some ways yeah that's a big part of it but uh exciting but scary times yeah it's a exciting CL always half full the other topic we're we're talking to people about is kind of digital fabrication how does digital fabrication play a role uh obviously that's usually linked to the workshop a little bit but then I see you guys are working with uh a lot of mass Timber Timber Products and you get to get into that making side of things 3D printing what's your thought on digital fabrication and are you incorporating into the office in any way at the moment that's a that's a very good question it's and actually a digital fabrication is very close to my heart because it's two words that I like a lot when they combined I like them even more and that's maybe also my answer have been at the office for 10 years I've seen our workshops and our workflows change multiple times both in of course in Staffing people leave and and others come in but also in how technology can in some way disturb that a little bit and if I look 10 years back and I look at all of our walls it was packed with these sketch models that was directly taken from our sketchy models in the in Rhino and then into the model workshop and out again so we had so much feedback on our model so that was kind of the first kind of iteration of digital fabrication that's where 3D printers the small ones became a little bit part of our project we got new laser cutters all of the useful suspects back in the days and there was kind of an interest in in exploring what can you cut with it can you cut all of these different Fabrics like how can you put stuff together there was there was so much talk around creating those models and experimentations like mockups in one to5 instead of one: one which is all also important but then something amazing happened in my mind for the industry but not so very nice for the digital fabrication side of things inscape arrived and maybe I'm jumping a little bit but but B me a couple of seconds here when nscap arrived we became so fast in producing all of the inputs and Views that we forgot a little bit the importance of how to fabricate because now it was more about creating fantastic computer games basically where you can run around big fan of computer games but we lost a little bit of touch in the whole fabrication layer of things and sadly I've seen this for years now also in House of course that's that's my data points but also when I see the industry that the focus has moved more towards creating the images than the fabrication and exploration but there's a hope and that hope is is is is in in in transformation projects in transformation projects you get a lot of the materials up in front up front you you get to go in and see what materials are available in your building what can be used and not used and then you have to take those materials and make them a little bit analog or digital again and then figure out how you assemble them again a little bit also when we spoke about the fish market that many of the tools are offering so much on on on the quantities the surface areas all of those fantastic things that we like to look at from a data point of view but it seems like there's no format who's discussing the joint and now there's an opportunity but all of those Timber structures how to join things together with uh old and new uh different types of materialss really really hoping that this is this is the the layer that we will see now that we will get a little bit back to the sources and and actually touch materials a little bit again look at that yeah I guess is that also maybe a part of the as a as a profession we've become more Image Creators than Architects which are Master Builders uh so you know whether it's andscape we we create images we don't we're not connected with Act of making anymore so much but digital fabrication maybe allows that and I don't know if there's for example 3D printing yeah you have this direct link to this making process it's tangible is there any particular like digital fabrication methodology that you're particularly attracted to where it's like CNC Timber 3D printing that kind of thing I think uh if if if Point Cloud scanners is that part of this the making thing can be I think that's maybe where I don't know if I will say most attractive to attracted to but we are in a tech world so let me just call it as it is but I think that that that is very interesting an interesting field because this about getting information from a really non digital world and being able to recreate that in the digital world so that we have an opportunity to create new and amazing transformation projects I find that actually very very interesting and the smarter we can get these Point Cloud models to be the better it is and we are in contact with a couple of companies that are huge utilizing in my mind very heavy AI driven analysis models on the point Cloud so when you do a point Cloud scan it can go in and uh and identify you are a door you are a window afterwards so that's maybe one of the one of them that I'm very very interested in the the second one is maybe it sounds very very odd what I'm saying now but it's a little bit back to the laser cutter in big scale uh we have uh built our first like full uh Timber project in Bon Holm uh Island on on here in Denmark bolm and it was a full uh Timber building and it was these big big CLT CT what's the other one called uh CLT glue Lam yeah CT CT uh mixing around with two surfaces that came in where everything was pre-cut in it like here's the window here's there going to be door it went a little bit fast in the process so there was a little bit of a manual thing going on on the on the on the building side afterwards but what became quite interesting to me and what we have been discussing lately is that a lot of the offcuts that comes with kind of the laser cutter approach here can we begin to use technology to smartly recreate stuff that can be used as uh as furniture or as other things in the project can it be the reverse thing that suddenly your architecture is impacted by the offcut you're doing so it's a maybe low Tech to look at 2D again when we in this amazing 3D world but I found that that story quite interesting of tapping into these offcuts of of of reusing mat yeah there was there was something there just clicked with me I just don't know what it is yet but I just found it interesting uh from a material point of view and also a littleit maybe a geometry and maker kind of again where you have these cuts and you need to figure out what to do with them yeah I think that that world of fabricating Mass Timber is like very like a approachable and and usable and like it's very familiar in one way yeah um but the offcut thing that's that's a fun idea you can make like a modular Lego part from all the yeah he he had really became that we we had the data we knew exactly what what off ports we had and then we started looking into how can they be reused in furniture for for it could be a desk in in each of the hotel rooms it could be a like a a chair or a bench all of those uh things and then you can discuss what is good or bad architecture I don't have the answer I just know what I like but I think in terms of the story and seeing maybe a simple process having quite a strong message is uh is something that I like with that method here but uh another question that we asked a lot of people is like for young Architects out there that want to come and join fre xn and uh maybe become one of these people in your like knowledge hubs of computation or Bim or something like that what advice would you give to them that are kind of interested to come join you guys and you know how can they skill up or yeah I think we are still young I I will say I hope but uh to talk to the even younger talents out there for me I think I understand at the moment why there's a little bit of a nervous feeling of what should I do yeah uh because I think that is very uh obvious when you are out giving lectures at uh at schools at universities you feel that there's an interest in learning feel that there's an interesting and really pursuing these Technologies if we talk about that first and uh you really feel that they feel that it's a steep learning curve and they don't get that in University at the moment maybe some of them will not not say 100% here so maybe my advice could be there to step a little bit out of your comfort zone and uh again I don't want to to Brand here but AG and others that are trying to tackle and show how you in practice are working with things that could be a good way of just understanding the the ideas but I will also say now I'm kind of completely saying the opposite now I will also say that it's important that you come in with a fresh and open mind and show what you can do because if you show us stuff that we already can do then it's not interesting we need people that are showing us new things like like things that we we couldn't really see and and fory and that's why I think one of the the biggest uh things I might say and that I've used for the past uh many years in in in business and maybe a little bit dangerous to say online at the moment or or or recorded but I try to answer as many mails or as many LinkedIn post as possible from Young students that want to ask advice about it could be a thesis project it could be survey or it could be a specific they want to learn a little bit more I see problem in taking one here and there of my time to discuss with with with students or young talents that are curious about this like last week I took a Saturday off speaking with one in Brazil I was curious about how we are enabling Technologies both in the industry but also in the Scandinavian countries and then yet again here here in txn I think that's maybe one of my most important advises and and what I maybe missed out when I was a student but we didn't have all of these fancy places to connect as we have today yeah but really we like to talk we like to uh to explore and we like to collaborate so say that's maybe maybe the two Focus areas and and the third one is there to challenge your University there to challenge the program just explore who who cares about your grades out here we care about ideas we care about a really cool colleague and we care about people that has other things in life than only work like go to concerts go for a bike Rod go climb I don't know what you do it's it's a trend here that people that want to do a lot of exercises so apparent that's what they do but get away from work is almost sometimes my advice as well I enjoy when you get people in that can Inspire with a conversation that they have just been in a out swimming in in minus whatever water and and it's just interesting that that you are spending time getting fresh air in your brain as well so maybe also don't stress I know it's difficult when you see all of these um smart cles online or LinkedIn and those places that show the best we need to maybe there to show all of the process and all of the worst in us as well so that people don't get scared that the learning curve is so so steep here so maybe I'm not saying specifically learn this software or learn this software because I truly believe that all software can be taught but it's the person and the mindset behind that where we have the issue or the the opportunity and stay cool and agile to your process and then it's very easy to mimic your methods from Rhino to Revit to Grass up or to coding it seems to be like a learning curve that is not easy but tangible while the the inspiration at all of this it doesn't come from sitting in my opinion 15 hours in front of a computer it comes from so much more so also take it easy a little bit as well don't stress too much uh go see some of the world go see some of the world talk to weird people uh make some good food or make it like just that find other places for inspiration I think maybe that's that's what I what I realized when I was when I was a student uh back in the days that all of my summer vacations I realized I never went to go for a summer job uh I was part of this um these four nerds at the school where I went that was part of a little cluster with two PhD students that liked to hack and code and uh they always for some reason found money and founding each summer to do a pavilion uh and it was part of the the cultural week in that City where where the University was and they like to explore from nature to structure and trying to see what happens if we use light as our source what if it's music how does that affect the structure so I learned back in seven and eight how to weld never tried it before but sudden we had to weld the structure and sadly all of the the sticks that we had to weld they came from us having to cut them so in the model it was so cleanly model one to one but when we had to build it the tolerances in the end was so bad but you learn a lot and you learn so much about just ding to do something else than uh what people say maybe that's maybe the best argument but that's that's how I ended here a little bit of a misfit in practice I think okay our final question we've we've asked everyone is 2024 a lot going on we're in the world of fomo of AI 3D printing game engines all of this stuff going on uh is there something you're particularly excited for on the horizon in 2024 um there's maybe two things uh I'm always in some ways curious and searching that's both a fantastic skill to have and the worst thing to have because you never never settle in in some ways and I think I already touched on the first one uh about um how the industry needs to somehow disrupt itself and somebody might say that this is a very very um I'm nervous about that I actually see it as as a huge Advantage I will counter everyone in the offices around and have them look a little bit at their process again and what they do and maybe there's some places where it could be fun to go to work and do something else there must be something during the day that I really really annoying to do I can name the first 10 here but I don't want to bother about that I think we know what we're talking about so so that is that is a little bit more on a higher level organization uh wise in the industry but another thing that I've thought about lately and I've been talking to many about at conferences when we've been slightly a little bit drunk that's maybe more utopian thing that it might happen or might not happen but I'm very curious to see if there's a way of creating a material metaverse uh a place where you basically have an Ikea digital furnit furniture store for materials so that let's say we are in in Australia for project yeah then we have an opportunity to go into the the world of materials in that metaverse and then all of the people who has materials available actually have a digital footprint of the quantities okay it it sounds in my mind super easy to do but impossible to actually manage but if there's a carrot on getting that digitalized I think there's such such a huge potential for scalability and knowing what is available out there and it seems like that's a discussion we see a lot when we out in in in the world uh scarcity of materials so tech-wise it can only be solved through Tech but I'm very curious to see if if that can can happen uh another thing that Taps into that and I have a feeling that all companies are saying the same I will do it as well but it's of course on the game engines yeah uh I'm maybe not taking the seual Approach at the moment I'm talking about the age of an architect and a Creator because uh my nephew is playing fortnite completely crazy at home and is way better than me in that world because you now have to build stuff and it's very interesting to see I had him walking around here uh a couple of years ago when he was first encountered with what I actually do and he immediately could see a a link to uh to his world of of how of of how oh that's a person I am that person I can see this so now when you see him build of course he builds stuff for avoiding being shot but there's all of these other places in the games where where you have the opportunity to create yeah uh and and I think those game engines are coming back to what I said in earlier the the interview here is about democratizing knowledge yeah and that is maybe what I'm most nervous and most interested about I'm seeing um people that basically have tools available online where they can draw the Full House themselves maybe it's good maybe it's bad I honestly don't know yet but there will be some skills that need to be upgraded uh here and there to try to adapt to to the new world but personally I feel that um that that for me looking forward I I I honestly hope that there's even more collaboration happening between companies a little bit I I think it's good that we see the first companies that are beginning to open up a little bit more but do we dare actually to honestly collaborate on things that could be quite interesting to see uh and that can be through technology it can be through workshops it can through many things but really hoping for that but I will say this kind of material Utopia metaverse is maybe an insane answer to something that is 100% not going to happen in 24 but something that could start very very low uh in just one project to see how do you map materials and how do you begin to visualize them in your your your your scenes a little bit more because we are at the moment all using inscape and using a little bit the same material so it seems like all companies look alike yeah what if it could be become more personalized by the project and the the materials you have available that kind of taking an image and then immediat a material in your digital world it's really tapping to both worlds these these overlays between digital and analog that's maybe where I'm always finding myself in for good and for bad yeah that's interesting I've not not heard of like a a metav for material library is quite quite cool thanks uh I would say that I got a little bit um tired when I heard so much about metaverse and buing in meterse I was I was really sitting and thinking can should I live there what is it a financial game we are playing what is it and and I see so much opportunity in actually building the analog world that and there's so much to do there with the help of Technology without the help of technology that uh there there's enough to focus on there um so so yeah that's uh it was something that came up after I saw I spoke with Copus from Nvidia about all of the things that they're pushing uh just had a little bit of a thought there but c a little bit of a qu one yeah yeah I like it game engines gamification democratization I think it's all super interesting uh topics yeah yeah very interesting topics