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each practice today we're going to be here with my own firm big here in London and I'm going to talk to a little bit about how Design Technology plays a role inside of big so right now it's minus two so let's get inside cuz we're [Music] [Applause] [Music] freezing all right welcome to Big London this is our office uh so London office has been here since 2016 we started with only a handful of people we grew to about 30 40 people for a bunch of years now we're here today we are around 130 people here in the London office that's one thing people don't realize how big uh big London has grown over the years uh and we'll come and give you a bit of a tour now so this is our canteen space this is essentially where we hang out we do Friday bars so we let off a bit of steam we do presentations so we'll do talks here or just chill out and have lunch but it's kind of like our a communal space where we hang out here I'll talk you through some of the models and some of the products that we have in the office right now so actually I'll talk you through a little bit of like some of the products that started the London office so this office started because of the Google products that we designed and built in collaboration with heatherwick which I'll show you in a little bit but this was also a key product uh that kind of kickstarted the growth in London this is the ETB Tower in Berlin it's almost uh it's topped out it looks like a built uh project right now this is uh the next big product that we had here in London it was the Daily Express building it's 120 Fleet Street it's currently a big hole in the grounds uh under construction so uh this building here was the Daily Express building it's a grade two listed building so this one we are refurbishing so yeah maybe one other cool thing about this building obviously each Terrace you you've got these stepping Terrace so each floor pretty much has their own private Terrace and the really cool thing about this is from the Terrace you have pretty epic views of London as a whole but also you got St Paul's you got the cluster of of the London Towers there so um this is one thing that we've seen like postco we're now getting more and more office buildings that have breakout outdoor spaces before it was always a challenge to convince and we were always convincing developers to add Terraces now in a postco world uh it's being requested so uh yeah this should be a pretty cool feature of this building moving on from that building another key project that really kind of continue the growth of the London office is the city life building in Milan this is a competition that we won this is a building that kind of sits in the middle of Milan and this is essentially an office building the roof is completely covered in photov voltaics so the building can generate a lot of its own energy from the roof and you can look into the story of the design a little bit but the roof kind of frames these other buildings next to it rather them competes with them in terms of verticality for sure one of my favorite features in the office is our little 3D printed projects so every single one of these projects is printed at the same scale the nice thing about this is you can kind of get a sense of scale you you somewhere get lost sometimes In the comparison between one and the other so uh this is our little little Fleet stre project here in London so you can see next to the Coco Towers in Miami they're pretty similar scale the one that always blows me away you've got obviously via Tower uh Vancouver house which are all fairly well-known projects obviously uh our copen Hill project but the one that always blows me away is the spiral in New York um when you put it next to one of the other other buildings it's uh it's huge it a whole city block in New York so it's pretty big but I think it's always super cool to see these side by side and get a sense of scale so actually some of the products here these are actually designed by big these are part of our collaboration with artam Medi these are kind of bubble lights um which are pretty cool sometimes we get these as gifts for uh Christmas uh these chairs we've also designed these are this is our via chair inspired by our via project in New York these are our brick sofa super comfortable and uh really playful and so yeah the table is actually uh I think the facade from the mountainous which was of course one of the iconic projects that kind of kickstarted the big era and the yes is more eror so now let's go and have a look at some of the workspace and some other parts of the office so these are some of the products that we currently have in the office here in London we've got our uh London Tower that I was just explaining 120 Fleet Street we've got the tower that is built in uh Frankfurt Germany ETB office tower in Berlin and this is a Google campus it's designed outside in the New York office uh in collaboration with heatherwick which is now being built they've moved in and the googlers are Googling away so this is where the magic happens this is actually the office we have a mix of the project design teams we've got Ops teams the DT teams all mixed in with different people here this is definitely a cool feature we've got little Windows into the other offices are big we got Barcelona uh obviously here in London New York it's about 5: in the morning there so there's no one there right now um but it's kind of cool you can see some of my old colleagues from New York sometimes passing by the office and you can give them a wave here we have our wall of fame all the different posters and front covers of magazines that have featured big it's always kind of cool I think for sure being featured on Wine magazine as a DT guy that's definitely one of our coolest uh front covers but yeah there's a whole bunch of different ones here so this is a esset campus in Slovakia near Bratislava this is a cyber security company/ office this is like an office campus um the cool thing about this is obviously the roof is a key feature in this it kind of emulates the mountains that set like here which you can't quite see in this model the roof is completely covered in solar panels so it's completely it's almost uh generate all the electricity that the campus needs through the roof itself this was one of the first products that uh I did when I came here in London that we did in Bim obviously from a bin perspective it's kind of a on somewhat a simple product in like uh the buildings are not too crazy in terms of the geometry but the roof of course is was a bit more of a challenge in terms of Revit and placing solar panels so this is typical like we're always kind of having to solve uh these issues in Revit where some of it is pretty standard in in Revit and some of it we have to get a little bit creative in how we model these things this is obviously the project that kicked off the London office this is our Google headquarters here in London in King's cross again we designed in collaboration with heatherwick Studio which is currently under construction it's a massive project it's almost like a ground scraper it looks like it's just built out of three stories but actually in each story the uh floor plate inside offsets a little bit so you can see your colleagues on the floors below it also allows natural daylight to penetrate right into the center of the building pretty cool building that I think is finishing construction this year in 20124 all right so come take a look this is my secret DT underground layer aka the VR room the teams can come down here and just explore the designs on screen and also on the computer we can bring clients down here and all that kind of stuff we have our highs specs VR computer down here so this is where the guys can come down you know with their big ends scape models twin motion could be unreal whatever it is that they're experimenting with typically it's usually sometimes it's more custom Unity applications we also have aad in New York which hopefully one day you'll meet that's making some cool stuff with that and then over the years we've also been experimenting with the hollow lens this is the Hol lens 2 so this is augmented reality the nice thing about this you got virtual reality augmented reality and this guy kind of does both which is uh super nice but uh we were definitely experimenting with this uh on site like so now you can just walk around the construction site with your like uh stylish sunglasses you know you can just be cruise around sh disch in this and no one would care um but obviously with this we're trying to connect more with the active making and the construction process and overlay bin models or 3D models for example whilst we're building the headquarters but and the cool thing is you can fli these up and you know now I look cool Welcome to our workshops so this is where we kind of make some models we got 3D printers and uh we can build some of our own in-house models one thing that's been super interesting with the workshop uh since I joined in 2018 I think we had like one or two 3D printer in the workshop and we were still in that era of like the blue foam where you're cut why you're cutting it out which if you've ever done that is a pain in the ass yes and uh and suddenly the whole Workshop transformed with 3D printers and now our workshops have you know walls of ulti makers and other printers I'm in here with uh Helena who's one of our Workshop specialist and Peter over there who's uh the workshop manager and uh as you can see here we are daily you know refurbishing these refining these you know they're great machines uh but occasionally you do need to fix them maintain them mostly make sure they're yeah so uh Helena give us a little bit of a walk through of like the different kinds of printers that we have here you've obviously got the alter makers of different size that are all going exactly the difference between these two is just a newer technology and the bigger build size like the build plates the volume um the bigger ones are obviously our favorites but we're still trying to revive those that give us a bit of a hard time time but overall it's a it's a reliable technology I think and we've grown you said you had one when you first joined there's n yeah like one or two and now we've got over exactly I think one one thing I see the teams using it is like it's study models right it's sometimes it's fullon production models um also you know we're also trying to get people um a bit more comfortable to use them and not have it be this like fear like what if I print something exactly and like not only come in here to make a final model but also like a concept or study something it can look nice this it's pretty printed but this is basically our plastic wall um and over there we have another technology for 3D printing have a look at these this one I'm going to call our favorite because it's the one that failed the least uh so shout out to formlabs formlabs this is an example of something that we prints it's obviously a much smaller book plate than the others and also much smaller than this one here but it's way more reliable in terms of successful prints and like not breaking down like maintaining it this one is comes all the way from Hong Kong so every time we need to park it's like 10 days shipping waiting dress but these ones you can get a lot more detail right it's like like this not these two like the technology in general uh compared to the fdm it's a bit you can actually zoom in if you want I can show you maybe like this is how thin the supports can go and then you can really see like a tiling on roof for example just like a bit of texture you can go as thin as like 1.8 uh mm rods we printed the Eiffel Tower as an example of how th we can go on the railing can put the Eiffel Tower can we put the Eiffel Tower in here I mean it's it's supposedly it's being put in there before being sprayed but sure bit of an OCD whatever is happening here is our display models is the microwave don't put your food in there and just put your 3D late night this is where we put our pizzas to heat them back up but yeah that's it's a small small Workshop but we we have a lot coming out of it yeah always really cool and it's always nice to have models all around the office okay guys so now we've done a little bit of the tour of the office we're going to sit down and talk a little bit about Design Technology at Big this is the part where I'll be asking questions to the design technology people in each office in this case that's me uh so I'll be answering a few questions we've prepared as well as some of the questions uh that you guys have submited online and as we go do check our Instagram because we will be asking you guys the questions you want us to ask for other offices um for those you who don't know me my name is Oliver Thomas I'm the design technology manager here in big London and also part of the global Design Technology team at big uh sadly this is actually my last week at Big so I thought I'd give you guys a little bit of a tour before I go and talk about Design Technology stay tuned for what's coming in the future and uh you'll hopefully see more of these videos as well so uh we'll jump into a few questions and get started so what is the role of Design Technology at big and how you work on a day-to-day basis so yeah Design Technology at big is our like umbrella term for the tech that we use in the design process so it's everything from Bim computation a little bit of simulation immersive which kind of involves visualization AR VR all that kind of stuff uh the fabrication side of things so the guys in the workshop and then also the new kid on the Block which is AI of course and uh we have various different Specialists we have Design Technology Specialists that are people that have all parts of those things Bim and computation and we are basically like an in-house resource where we help each projects on a day-to-day basis with the tools and Technology they need on the projects but we're also working on like more of a global way of testing new technologies that we can add into the design process are big that will Aid in what we do of course the goal of Design Technology is that we're here to like support the unique design process at Big so uh whether that's you know computation in the earlier stages or Bim in the later stages for example I would say like our bread butter in the design technology team is Bim and computation obviously computation is typically more used in the early stages Bim in the later stages and now we're juggling all these other things like visualization immersive and AI so each office has a design technology team and that team will like uh will handle that office but we also work globally as a team sharing resources and the things that do and don't work in each office so for example Bim we share a lot of the resources and templates and things like that but of course each office is customized computation is a little bit more Global and Ai and things like that so we're working locally but also globally at the same time how does Design Technology fit into the design process we work in terms of helping the teams in a few different ways so one of course is simply uh we help the teams on a day-to-day basis that could be as simple as someone coming to ask us to help them with a grasshopper script it can be a bit more serious and longterm that we get assigned to projects for example this project is now going into stage three or stage four and we need to produce a bin model so then we're assigned a bit more long-term and so we help them on a day to-day basis with whatever they need it could be anything from a quick grasshopper script to coming up with like some kind of immersive walkthr experience the other big thing that we're always trying to do is to uh amplify the designer's own technology skill set design technology skill set so we're also trying to train the designers in grasshopper in Bim and all this kind of stuff we're very much a firm where it's not for example the Bim side we don't just build the models for the design teams we train the designers with the skill set of Bim so they can build the Bim models and we Aid them in that process and we'll help them particularly in the advanced workflows and things like that so on one hand we're here to as a consultant help them on two we want to amplify their design process and three is like I said is really trying to test new things that we think will make the design process better or enhance the design process so for example this crazy new thing AI came about we quickly test it see if we think it's useful get it into the hands of the designers as quick as we can and then see if it's adopted or not and um so it's always different ways that we're trying to integrate it into the design process and into the design teams talk us through the basic software that you use at Big yeah I think this is like the number one question I get asked and it's a question we will ask other firms as well as we go with these architect tools and the answer will almost be exactly the same so like our design tool is revolves around Rhino we design in Rhino that's our space where we get creative we iterate especially quickly we test all the things so Rhino is sort of like the foundation in terms of where we design then of course we have things that Aid that grasshopper of course in terms of computation and allowing us to explore more things analyze stuff uh so obviously grasshopper is a big component in our design process then of course you got the viz side which plugs into Rhino which we're mostly using endcap is probably our main tool right now we do of course use vray for that kind of slightly high end uh inhouse production and I do see like a growing Trend in Twin motion is definitely making a comeback shall we say uh particularly if we see projects with like uh rich in nature and things like that and then the kind of sister to Rhino is Revit like in terms of soon as a project evolves outside of Concepts uh doesn't matter if contractually we need to we will always bring the project into Revit after concept and that's because you know that early stage is very chaotic and we're iterating once we go into Concepts uh out of Concepts we go into Revit where we can start documenting the building and we can document in a much more efficient way then of course that's where Revit we can get aided by plugins such as Rhino inside which act as a bridge between our Rhino world and our Revit world and the interesting thing about that is we can now use grasshopper for that which is a common kind of language the designers already know from the concept stage so uh like Mo most firms that's the broad that's the bread and butter of you know the software that we use of course there's loads of other things that we're using I'm not going to name all the grasshopper plugins that we use um of course there's also a little bit of game engines and things like that like unreal Unity that we're experimenting with and of course we are experimenting with AI in places uh of course mid journey is is one of those tools but uh we'll talk about that in a little bit but that's the broad spectrum and I'm sure sure that same answer is going to be for many of the other firms that we will visit how does B and computation play a role in the office and in the design process Bim is very much like where we document the building that's where uh once we kind our Concepts we go and draw our plans our elevations to that next level of detail sheets and all this kind of stuff so Bim is very much almost part of the I later stages but anything outside of cont concept and of course you know deep when we go into construction computation uh plays more of a role in the earlier stages stereotypically so we may be scripting a building scripting the facade analyzing massing or just simply automating what we're doing like placing a a thousand trees on a surface or something like that um but of course computation can continue very much into later stages so again it helps us uh we can like amplify a bin process with computation again like just bringing geometry from Rino into Revit or we can use it to automate things in Revit so uh I would typically say like computation is stereotypically heavy in the concept stages and somewhat like less so in the later stages and Bim is the reverse of that uh we're using it less in the very early stages but in the later stages it becomes Paramount and it's always a balance between the two and that's one thing why we are always looking for DT Specialists that have both sides of that coin of Bim and computation and it's still one of the things that is it's more common to find people with those skill set but it's still hard to find so that's why number one recommendation if you're interested in becoming a specialist or getting into design technology is to have that Bim and computational side for sure so with regards to visualization what software are you using at the moment it was interesting when I joined big in 2018 we were very much using VR was our brand butter for like day-to-day renders rendering out of Rhino and then we did have viz teams that were kind of using VR and Rhino and 3ds Max but then uh andscape got introduced into the office by 2019 I was seeing like let's say 10% of projects using nscap and the rest using vray and then fast forward to let's say 21 it was the complete opposite like everyone was on the endcap train uh we still use V for like you know that next level of render but at the moment nscap is absolutely uh bread and butter like visualization tool but like I said before we're definitely seeing a a growth in teams one wanting to use twin motion because especially in those nature Rich environments and I think we're really interested and have been experimenting with unreal as the kind of New Era version of high-end renders so before it was like 3ds Max and vray now we're kind of interested in like will unreal be the place where we can create high quality visualization and of course again like the the little nukeit on the Block is can we use AI for visualization and so we've definitely been experimenting with loex stable uh mid journey to see if we can use it kind of as part of the rendering process as well so how about immersive design VR AR game engines and the metaverse what are you experimenting with that big as you see we had like a we have our own VR room that we're experimenting with VR I would say is very much part of the design process now the team know they can use you know nscap and twin motion have made it so easy you just click a button and you're in VR and so we can use it as like a part of the design process like what does it feel like to be in this space uh as a presentation tool obviously for for clients and things like that this is obviously been around for a while now um and it's still like finding its place VR I think people are still a little bit hesitant to put the headset on in meetings so we also experiment with with like having it on screen and walkthroughs um like just giving someone a game controller actually is kind of interesting and some people are more comfortable with that kind of thing um so virtual reality I think is is ingrains but I feel like we're waiting for the next iteration of virtual reality sorry let me scratch my nose SEC um augmented reality on the other hand is something we again we're experimenting with uh and trying to find a place in the office and um I think it found a couple places like one in the workshop because augment reality is typically more connected with the act of making so uh the workshop guys started to adopt it to Aid them in like the modeling process um and then of course we also experimented with it on the site particularly in uh Copenhagen when whilst we were building the headquarters office we could test this on our own construction site which is pretty unique um and see like is there a way we can use this as designers coming onto the construction uh the construction site would the contractors be interested in using it in helping them in their process and so again it's it's one of those ones we're experimenting with and it's trying to find a home within the design and the construction phases and then finally I think the more broad term of immersive world what excites us most is things like unreal uh we have been experimenting with unity a fair bit Ahad in New York has been building some custom workflows to uh you know take clients through more curated workflows in VR um but I think we're really excited about unreal at the moment in the future we've started to experiment building our own headquarters in unreal and I think whilst everyone is so excited about Ai and the fomo of AI right now I really think unreal has a lot so much potential that maybe we're not seeing at the moment so I think that's definitely an area that we're super interested to continue to experiment with not only as a visit but also like virtual reality augmented reality animations online experiences maybe even getting into the the gaming World um I think real gives us so much potential to experiment beyond the walls of architecture so for sure I think unreal is a big thing we're interested in pursuing in the future and and like the metaverse as a term I think we've experimented in the metaverse there's a few projects that we've we've done some collaborations uh we did a project with Vice for example again I think it's still in an era where we're still understanding what the metaverse is what's it's going to be we've definitely done some experiments some products we have publicly and also some private ones uh again it's something we're really interested in keeping an eye on as we work out what exactly the metaverse is going to be and what we're going to use it for uh we'll we'll continue to experiment with it but that's again why we're really interested in like unreal gives us the opportunity like we can like build a project in unreal and we can use it for you know viz process in-house processes but then if something does come in the world of the game world or the metaverse world or digital twins nine times out of 10 it revolves around unreal so I think that's what's interesting about unreal is once you do have it in there uh there's so much opportunity to do things with it and I think that's what's uh what's really interesting but as for the metaverse we're still kind of keeping an eye on what the metaverse is going to be what opportunities it presents us as Architects so how is AI being used in the office and what are you using it on in Project yeah so this is like the million dooll question right now uh of course AI has definitely come into the office you know mid Journey has now been in the office for over a year at this point now um I think generally we're we're we're experimenting and keeping up with all the things that are going on within AI and seeing again how we can integrate it into our design process I think one thing is clear like everything that we used uh dt4 it's about amplifying our unique design process and uh how does it Aid the thinking behind the project I think the thing right now is uh we see like all these images people can create images so easily now and create ideas so easily but actually the thinking behind them uh I'm actually seeing the opposite as like there's less maybe thought behind the image and what we want to do is like uh I think one of the unique things at big is the thinking behind the pro project and the image or the render that you see at the end of it is the kind of final product of that so I think we're experimenting with one again getting into the designer's hands as quickly as possible we've seen them use it in many different ways it could be like inspiration for the beginner of a project it could be like as a way to illustrate a mood or materiality or an idea not necessarily like a a specific solution it could be as simple as almost like a presidence that we can create in terms of like an idea or a mood or something like that I think one of the ways we've really seen it be potentially successful is we've managed to integrate it with uh design tools like Rhino so we were experimenting with uh sending screenshots from Rhino to stable and like painting on top of the image with diffusion uh or using maybe lookx AI or some of the other tools um and so yeah we're definitely experimenting with with how we can use like the creative side right now of AI the diffusion side and then of course it's like maybe the the less sexy side the what I call like the production side which is it could be as simple as like when people start to use chat TPT to help you I don't know re write an email or something a simple as that but now we're starting to see it is we can we can especially in the DT team help us to like I don't know uh rewrite code check for errors even get designers to like can you check um various building RS things against it like not that we can trust AI at that point but uh it could be as boring as like maybe Kobe requirements in Bim and making sure the codes are correct like so we're also trying to experiment and find ways like where can we use these other tools like large language models in the production side to help us with some of the B more boring stuff and I think that's also like a bit of an underrated opportunity like as always with a lot of the DT stuff like can we free up the designer's time in production like whether it's uh rewriting an email or drawing a wall line by line and CAD uh if we can free up the Design's production time the designer's production time we can give them more time in the thinking process and that's where we add the most value so again coming back to this AI thing I think we're we're we're looking at it from that angle is like how can it Aid Us in what we do and the thinking that we have rather than like we obviously want to avoid the the era where you know people are just using mid journey to come up with the idea and we're just then solving it from there of course that's exactly what we want to avoid um so yeah AI is a crazy one right now we're experimenting with it we're testing it but at the same time we're kind of seeing where it fits within the design process um so yeah we have some questions online that we're going to I'm just going to quickfire answer a little bit and uh we'll roll into it one thing that we were going to answer that someone asked is what is the next big revolution in aec you look forward to in 2024 I think for me there's two things I really see that are exciting generally that is AI of course for sure I think 2024 is going to be a super interesting year we're going to see uh real time diffusion I think we're going to start to see that being integrated with Rhino and paramet rric workflows I think that's super exciting um so AI in general of course uh and then unreal I think like I said unreal is super exciting I think everyone is foming over AI right now but actually there's some incredible stuff going on in unreal and game engines so for me the two things I'm excited about this year is uh Ai and unreal that's the two things I'm going to be upskilling this year for sure um there's another good question what's something special about big that you don't find in other offices um I think one thing that is special in big I mean I haven't worked in all all the other offices uh so I can't really say exactly what it's like to work in them but I do think the environment of big is uh something very special that's what I think the the like secret source so to speak of being a big is everyone's super friendly it's a super creative environment uh you also encouraged to share ideas and workflows and stuff with other people um so I do think the culture inside big is something that is really special and of course this comes from the top from Baka and also some really key people uh over the years like kaiua in New York is a big component to the culture in big and many other partners uh so I do think that's one thing that's particularly special about big they celebrate when you join they celebrate when you leave you keep in touch uh so yeah once you're a biger you're a you're a biger for life um there's another question of what experience should one have to join a design technology team this is a great question because uh like we were looking to add someone a few months ago uh We join we had Hannah join us um and one thing I do think if you want to join a design technology team like I said having that Bim and computational skill set if you want to be a design technology specialist That's someone who broadly has everything you're not just Bim you're not just computation uh to have that Bim and computational skill set uh of course you do want to have some experience as an architect I think that is a good thing to be you know you were a designer and now you've become a specialist and it's been like a natural progression um I do think that's a that's a good thing obviously you have to have a pretty good grasp and advanced knowledge of Bim or and computation or computation and simulation and AI you need to have like a superpower in one of them maybe but also be interested in the other ones and of course that last part you have to have an interest for technology and architecture I think um so yeah for for those we're always looking for a few things obviously the technological skill set uh you have experience as an architect as a designer you have a bit of experience in terms of this more specialist side and most importantly uh having uh an interesting personality to join the team and fit into the culture here at Big um another question at which level do you use unreal do you create live presentations video game style uh this is one we're definitely experimenting with it's not so much utilized on projects as much as we like right now um I do again this is why I'm kind of really interested in real I do see a huge presentation aspect where we've kind of evolved from like slides and diagrams right to diagrams and gifts to gifts and videos and now we're kind of in the area of videos and and like immersive experiences so I do like you put video game style I do actually think that's a good thing like I'm actually finding more people are used to having a controller in their hand than they are having a big headset on the head so uh we're not using as much as we like right now but again it's for sure a big part of that um how are The Tech Guys computational designers implemented on in projects so again I touched on this a little bit but the the specialist are assigned to projects more longterm when depending on how uh if it's like a Bim process or a long computational process I don't know you're generating an entire master plan they'll be on the project more long term but it can also be shortterm like hey can you help me with this script today and you sit down at a desk for 10 minutes you could be helping them for two hours uh so yeah it's super um it can completely fluctuate uh another question from Nathaniel in uh in-house training and onboarding do we do in-house training this is a little bit of a plug but yeah we do have in-house training particularly for design assistant we do like a mini boot so for example some of the guys will take them through not how to learn Rhino but like the uh how we use Rhino and some tips and tricks I usually teach them grasshopper for example uh a little bit of Bim that's more Project Specific so we do have uh in-house training for like new recruits uh the design assistants and then in terms of like inhouse training generally I am always trying to host like grasshopper workshops Rhino inside workshops Revit workshops are typically more Project based so if a like this team is going into Revit next week we do like a Revit training and so yeah I've been doing a lot of the in-house training of course this is where architect network was kind of born a lot of these courses I was building here inside of big and now I've reformatted them and that is what the courses are now available on our website so that was the whole point of architect network was to to uh teach from the perspective of practice so the foundation course that we have on architect Network right now is exactly the same thing I teach the big sters inhouse here at Big there's one other question if you could share anything with yourself before starting this career what would it be a lot of Architects would probably say don't get into architect umh I don't know actually I uh I think one career thing that helped me massively um and maybe this also answers the question of like how to get into Design Technology team um going to to a going to conferences is actually hugely beneficial I know it's sometimes it can be expensive as a student it's sometimes a little bit more affordable but my whole career actually you can kind of follow it back in terms of getting into design technology and computation all these things to going to um smart geometry in 2014 in Hong Kong uh uh from that I joined my last company front and got into the computational side of fabrication and facades and actually uh how I got into big was also through people I met at that conference so by far going to a conference was the most influential thing I did my career for me um I also think that like uh if you've applied to a lot of if you've applied to Big before and you didn't get in I think I had applied to big uh three or four times before I actually got an interview and go in so you know it's always about timing with opportunities in you know firms like big if you don't get in the first time it doesn't mean you're not right it's just mean maybe the opportunity wasn't right at that time you're still developing a skill set and you know sometimes uh we hire for products products come in and we hire and then products come in later and we hire again so uh yeah if you've applied to firms that you really want to get into and you know you didn't get a reply yet don't be down about it definitely try again because uh you know things always change so timing is always a huge thing in terms of progressing your career for sure all right guys thanks for coming and joining us on the tour here and hearing a bit about Design Technology at big as I said this is going to be the first architect door that we're doing we are going to be visiting some of the other offices here in London and eventually beyond that so stay tuned for that if you do like these videos give us a like and a subscribe so we can keep producing them but otherwise thank you and we'll see you in the next tour