Driving Design Excellence Through Computational Design
Michael Wagner AIA Design Strategy Leader
The act of design is the process through which we solve problems, pollinated with creativity, rigor and passion. But what if we could supercharge this process? Infuse it with intelligence and the capacity to manipulate and refine its output? Create something – a process, a design, a way of thinking – that revolutionizes how we work or the built environment around us, or simply makes the work we do more rewarding and, dare we say it – fun?
Computers revolutionized how designers worked decades ago, replacing drafting boards with computer screens. But the digital revolution is still nascent. Today, we have the capability of manipulating the software we use to give birth
to ideas we never thought were possible, both in terms of what we can visualize as well as what we can build. Computational design is the broad term for this way of thinking. And here is where I think it’s critical to recast the conversation as a way of thinking, not just a way of doing: thinking is something we all can do. The specific knowledge and skillsets to manipulate digital technology may be the province of uniquely skilled people within our firm, but architecture is a team sport enriched through diversity of thought, capabilities and interests – and this is where the magic can truly happen.
I, alongside Ethan Atherton and Ruth Parr (from LS3P’s Digital Practice Team) recently attended the Advancing Computational Building
Design Conference in Austin, TX, where the future was on full display. It wasn’t a dystopian future where robots and AI take away our jobs. Far from it. The message was enormously hopeful – computational design can open up a way of working that gives us more agency and time to focus on what’s important: designing transformational places. Speaker after speaker, the message was the same: don’t chase efficiency. It’s a great and highly likely outcome, but instead, shift your mindset to chasing better, stronger design outcomes; what can these strategies do to elevate your client’s game? What can they do to make your design solution stronger, and better for its users, its community, the environment, the world?
Demystifying computational design is the first step in folding this way of thinking into our culture at LS3P. What is it, exactly? It’s coding in its most rudimentary form. It’s a way of stating a problem – and then finding the right digital tool to help solve it.
For example, your room tags in Revit don’t auto-rotate to match your building’s geometry and this small problem is sucking days, weeks away from your ability to focus on design. Or, your design concept is rooted in the idea that the façade emulates patterns found in nature; how can you run several design studies based on a sketch or seed of an idea within the boundaries of the curtain wall manufacturer’s options to find one that meets the design intent and keeps
the project in budget? This is design supercharged by technology.
There are designers across LS3P who possess the digital know-how to help us solve these utterly solvable problems. We call them “sleeper agents” – the kids who grew up with a keyboard in their hands, for whom “digital” is just a way of moving through the world. But the real-world experience of seeing design executed in the field time and time again is the secret sauce that will build robust computational outputs. It’s not about the computer savvy among us solely driving solutions. It’s about the collective brain trust of our firm coming together to solve problems
that are both real and tangible and possess a computational strategy to take us to the next level.
As a design strategy aligned with Evolution30 and the future of how we work as LS3P, folding computational design thinking into our collective lexicon and then building the team to support it is a key goal. Computational design will drive design excellence, giving us the space and the power to see opportunities we never thought were possible. It’s up to us to be curious enough to test it, be comfortable enough to fail at it a few times, and have our eyes opened to its vast potential.
Meet Michael
Michael Wagner serves as LS3P’s Design Strategy Leader. With previous experience as a Design Principal and Design Director for regional and global architectural firms, Michael brings a wealth of experience in large-scale, complex mixed-use projects, campus master planning and both public and private sector architectural projects, along with several AIA design awards.
Prior to completing his Masters of Architecture from NC State University, Michael worked as a journalist for 10 years for newspapers in New Orleans, New York, and North Carolina.