Update: The AIA has expressed their support for Gehry Technologies’ strategic alliance (reported last night on ArchDaily). “We applaud this enterprise by Gehry Technologies and the Board who are comprised of many AIA members because it is estimated that as much as 30% to as much as 50% of all time, money, materials and resources that go into a construction project do not add value to the final product,” said AIA President, Clark Manus, FAIA. “The AIA has long been advocating for tools such as Business Information Modeling and methodologies like Integrated Project Delivery that can help reduce the inefficiencies in construction projects. We are anxious to see the progress though this effort that will be beneficial for both the industry and clients.”
Today Frank Gehry, co-founder and chairman of Gehry Technologies (GT), announced plans to further his vision to ‘transform the building industry and the practice of design’. In an effort to redirect the profession back to solving both clients’ and communities’ problems Gehry has gathered together some of the world’s most prominent designers: David Childs, Massimo Colomban, Zaha Hadid, Greg Lynn, Laurie Olin, Wolf D. Prix, David Rockwell, Moshe Safdie, Matthias Schuler, Patrik Schumacher, Ben van Berkel, and Richard Saul Wurman to serve on Gehry Technologies’ board of advisors.
“I am dedicated to giving architects better control of the process so they can deliver the fruits of their imagination, which is what our clients expect. I have gathered a group of my friends together who believe in this mission as much as I do and who can help me find the solutions that will ultimately lead to better buildings throughout the world,” stated Gehry.
Focusing on demonstrating more successful processes to achieve outcomes of higher quality, more efficiency, and cost effective projects, this star studded alliance wants to most importantly ‘ensure a context for professional work where the best designs and the best facilities can be realized’.
Today marks the inaugural meeting for the new board of advisors at New York City’s Freedom Tower, with subsequent recurring virtual meetings (on a monthly basis) along with an annual in-person gathering.
Gehry Technologies has participated in the following projects:
Beijing National Stadium
City Plaza Hotel
Lincoln Center – Alice Tully Hall
Lou Ruvo Brain Institute
New World Symphony
Museum of Biodiversity in Panama
One Island East
San Li Tun
Taikoo Hui
Village at Queensridge
Soumaya Museum
Los Angeles, Calif.–October 18, 2011–Gehry Technologies (GT), a global leader in applying technology to building industry challenges, today announced that Co-founder and Chairman, Frank Gehry, has brought together the world’s most distinguished architects and designers to form a strategic alliance furthering his vision to transform the building industry and the practice of design. As part of today’s announcement, this core group of renowned architects will also serve on Gehry Technologies’ board of advisors.
“The building industry has been slowly but steadily moving toward minimizing individual responsibility and away from producing architecture that solves clients’ and communities’ problems,” offered Frank Gehry.
The alliance intends to enable new approaches to design through technology, to create more effective industry processes and a higher quality built environment. By applying and innovating new technology solutions to old problems such as waste, delay, and miscommunication, this new alliance will lead the process change that the AEC industry needs to confront future challenges. The group represents a new type of professional organization for the 21st century, one which embraces the possibility of technology to empower design. The alliance will work together to drive technology innovations that support the central role of design in the creation of culture.
GT’s management team-led by CEO Dayne Myers-will be bolstered with the unprecedented experience and strategic guidance of the world’s leading architects, builders and visionaries. They will test, use and support emerging GT innovations and high-profile projects; participate in marketing and public relations initiatives; and catalyze AEC industry change.
“We are honored to add such legendary expertise and industry thought leadership to the GT advisory team,” said Dayne Myers. “Their combined experience, ideas and insights will be instrumental in shaping our offerings to the market. This kind of resource is truly invaluable toward shaping our growth and leadership moving forward.”
About Gehry Technologies
GT provides design and project management technology and consulting services to leading owners, developers, architects, engineers, general contractors, fabricators, and other building industry professionals worldwide. GT solutions increase creativity and control; reduce project risks, costs, and completion times; and improve processes and decisions through collaboration, project visibility, and information access. GT is privately held, with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Mexico City, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing.
I would sincerely like to hear more about how this will deliver ‘more … cost-effective solutions.’
One of the practitioners mentioned above is designing a building down the road from me.
Its cost is around $9,000 / square metre (this is not hearsay. It is a government project and the cost appears in publicly available reports).
Comparably, a very high quality building in my city costs around $6,000 /square metre to construct.
The cost difference is no doubt down to the very complex *insert architect’s name* design, which has been designed using cutting-edge software as described above.
So where’s the cost-effectiveness?
At the end of the day, 5000 unique panels are still going to cost a lot more than 5000 standard panels, no matter how clever your computer software.
I don’t think the building industry will suddenly abandon all its infrastructure and invest in new machines and technologies just because a dozen architects want to design in a particular way.
I have read the article twice. Very thoroughly.
I understand the words. I don’t understand the purpose. I don’t understand what “this star studded alliance” is going to do exactly?
- “…to ensure a context for professional work where the best designs and the best facilities can be realized”?
- “…to lead the process change that the AEC industry needs to confront future challenges”?
- “…to create more effective industry processes and a higher quality built environment”?
All these bombastic tasks sound so… shallow. No specifics. No clear intentions. No concrete program. Sounds like a PR stunt to me. Sorry.
Why did you read it twice?
They probably just want to deliver another BIM product, such as Revit. A bit late if you ask me, but I do know that Gehry Technologies has a lot of awesome tools that are not available to the public, mostly because they cost over 20k.
I would love to play with this software when it comes out, unfortunately, they don’t provide trials and torrents are impossible to find.
Their website is pretty bad for a world renowned architect. It does show some hints of 3d modelling software.
gehrytechnologies.com
Gehry was a pioneer. He had to build a lot of technology to materialize his vision, and then help others to do so. This has nothing to do with if you like his designs or not. He advanced architectural technology.
We are still on the early stages of this technology, and it’s important to see what has happened in this “short” period, to find out how this technology can really have an impact in our built environment, besides helping us build complex forms.
Having the vision to stop and think after what he has achieved, thinking ahead into the future is interesting in this aspect. We still need the distance of time to judge, looking forward to see how this turns out.
You are using big words and got distracted by visionary talking while this is clearly a PR stunt to sell Gehry’s BIM software which is completely user unfriendly if you were ever to try it out.
No concrete information means exactly one thing – there is none.
What will this board do, give feedback so that this software at least gets closer to Revit? Yes, he started the revolution but the competition doesn’t sleep and is better and more resourceful in improving and optimising the idea of the original creator.
The horse has bolted,
Too late. We had a demo in our office of this software, even for a geek it looks too hard to use. Get Revit and Rhino, Rhino BIM.
This is the dumbest press release ever written.
‘more … cost-effective solutions.’
“.. because it is estimated that as much as 30% to as much as 50% of all time, money, materials and resources that go into a construction project do not add value to the final product,”
A piece of software won’t change this. BIM is a tool that can certainly support these ambitions, but won’t guaranty it. It’s still people who will have to change in order for BIM to really add value.
The short attention spans of the public and the need for ever more novel constructions has resulted in an architecture of increasing complexity. Buildings based on standard construction methods would save design time and construction time but I doubt we are returning to that for signature buildings. All the software in the world isn’t going to make building a Gehry designed structure easy.