Alberto Tono is an Architect working for HOK , one of the most prominent companies in the AEC Industry. He is doing research and development for BIM, AR, deep learning and new technologies. He is also the founder of 2 non-profits. The first is called San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of Alumni of the University of Padua Inc, which helps Italian students and researchers connect with the Silicon Valley environment. The other one is called San Francisco Computational Design User Group and it helps to share inspiring ideas, discussions about artificial intelligence, and connecting new technologies to the AEC industry.
He spoke with Novedge about what's brewing at HOK and in the future of Architecture.
Alberto is also the first gentleman to orchestrate a "Mixed Reality Marriage Proposal". Check it out here: [ Ссылка ]
Novedge offers Complete 3D design Solutions to today's Architect, 3D Artists, Makers and romantics everywhere. [ Ссылка ]
Transcript
- Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.
Welcome everyone, I'm Alberto Tono and I am a Design Technology Specialist at HOK.
I had a really great opportunity here in this company to start working in Building Information Modeling and its connection with Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence.
- How did you get where you are at now? What is your background?
I came from the University of Padua and I traveled around the world: in China, at the Harbin Institute of Technology; a little bit in the Netherlands with René van Zuuk Architekten; and then I spent one year in Rome to consolidate my background Computational Design and Computational BIM; and now finally I'm here, in my dream company HOK, in San Francisco a place where we can embrace Technologies and mix with Architects and Designers in the same environment to empower collaboration.
- Why is research in AR or VR so important?
We actually really believe in the power of Augmented Reality because it has the ability to connect different people in the same environment in a totally different way. They can be immersed and merge the digital world to the physical one. And this is a 'human centric' approach. Because humans are always at the center, and not totally immersed in a different
environment. We can still experience this social behavior or social relationship between the people. Another great example of what we do in house at HOK is the App that we developed. It's called HOK VR. It gives you the ability to experience our project in Virtual Reality.
- What new technologies excite you the most?
Artificial Intelligence, Block Chain, Quantum Computing. In Biomimicry for example we take inspiration from nature to provide a Design. But not only the Design also we want to empower our Building Information Modeling to go to the next level that is building a knowledge modeling system.So the information in the pyramid, actually evolves to become a knowledge. And this (knowledge) is going to be provided by artificial intelligence.That is really what we are researching now.
- Is BIM the new black?
I want to say the BIM is not fake news! It's a way to collaborate and to be involved in the same process. We really engage with people and workflow.
- What design sofware do you use in your experimentation?
We use Rhino, we use Grasshopper, we use Revit, Dynamo, Naviswork, Archicad software. We want to be as software agnostic as possible.
- What is the next frontier in Architecture?
There is one amazing software it's called Speckle and the main focus of Speckle is to integrate all different platforms like Rhino, Revit, also 3D j axis and web interface in the same environment. The next step is going to be the collaboration between computers.
