BE Magazine - Volume 4, Issue 4 - (Page 48)

THE LAST WORD A Remarkable Collaboration With a Forward-Thinking Community Greg Bentley Bentley CEO G enerativeComponents delivers exciting new capabilities that better empower users to innovate through computational design. But for Bentley itself, GenerativeComponents represents a new process for delivering sophisticated functionality. Typically, Bentley would assign a team of software engineers to survey the domain and potential users of a new application, then deﬁne requirements and speciﬁcations, create the software, test it, and then release a product. With GenerativeComponents, we took a much less linear and more userengaging approach, entailing a few years of productive iterations. GenerativeComponents began as a research project, exploring radically new methods for generating and working with complex geometric architectural forms through parametric and programmatic controls. Along the way, we attracted the involvement of academic researchers and an elite group of architects and engineers who shared an interest in this new approach to design and the results it made possible. The software development process was highly interactive, with new features quickly introduced in response to new ideas that arose through early adoption by an expanding community of joint researchers. GenerativeComponents evoked a realization—across disciplines and building types— that computation could ﬁnally unleash geometric creativity, rather than constraining it. Its practitioners were impatient for full realization of the software’s potential, but were uniquely willing to contribute their own efforts toward its validation. Over time, this collaboration bore fruit in two respects. On the one hand, as the structure and scope of the software solidiﬁed, we transitioned GenerativeComponents last year from the less formal R&D lab into our standard product development cycle, applying the detailed rigor that has now led to commercial release, with the required infrastructure for training and technical support. Just as signiﬁcantly, the network of elite early adopters, who were so fundamental in the successful evolution of GenerativeComponents, likewise formalized into a permanent community. The SmartGeometry group is dedicated to exploring and promoting the application of advanced 3D design tools and computational design methodologies. Founded by practicing design innovators from KPF London, Foster + Partners, and Arup Sport, this group has grown to include participants from many of the leading design practices and schools across Europe and North America. The activities of SmartGeometry members and workshop participants have catalyzed a stimulating network within which ideas, experience, and vision are shared, with a unique commitment to learning through collaboration. Practitioners inspire each other, as well as new adopters of computational design, by presenting breakthrough results. Even during the GenerativeComponents software beta phase, its use in the work of SmartGeometry members contributed to extraordinary projects, including some of the most admired buildings of the 21st century. Conferences held by the SmartGeometry group, with Bentley’s encouragement and support, have been held at least once a year since the initial meeting in 2003, and the number of participants has grown from a handful of professionals to so many that two conferences were held this year. Next year’s conference will be held at the remarkable BMW Welt, the event and delivery center of BMW. We are grateful to this community to which innovative technology is appealing. Bentley will continue to work with, learn from, and support it. Together, we intend to make GenerativeComponents part of the vocabulary of many infrastructure professionals who will be eager to move beyond computer-aiding to computationally enable new levels of innovation in design and fabrication. To facilitate their adoption of GenerativeComponents, Bentley is offering our ﬁrst Discovery Subscription Program, but we also recognize that investment in learning is essential for harnessing computational design. Among the growing list of universities incorporating GenerativeComponents into architectural and engineering design curricula are Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and MIT in North America; the Bartlett School of Architecture at the University of Central London, the University of Bath, and the Architectural Association in the United Kingdom; TU Delft and KTH Stockholm in Continental Europe; and RMIT University in Australia. Bentley Institute offerings range all the way up to a three-day course, GenerativeComponents Essentials. To hit the ground running with GenerativeComponents, see the Bentley Institute course schedule. Through the unprecedented experience of open and iterative development for GenerativeComponents, we have learned a lot about conceiving design software innovation in conjunction with a forwardthinking community of elite practitioners, and ultimately delivering it within our platform’s continuous improvement stream to integrate with established production processes. Our zeal to broaden such endeavors is a primary motivation behind our founding this year of our new Applied Research group, headed by Senior Vice President Buddy Cleveland. Through Applied Research, we look forward to similarly innovating, both in process and in substance, with users in many other domains of infrastructure. 48 BE MAGAZINE | Volume 4, Issue 4 http://lms.bentley.com/us/DesktopModules/OfferingInfo.aspx?cid=5094&catid=5&offid=21402 http://www.smartgeometry2008.com/

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of BE Magazine - Volume 4, Issue 4

BE Magazine - Volume 4, issue 4 Contents The Drive To Innovate News BE Newsletter Highlights Converging on the Market Bytes and Bricks Generative Components Building Courting Success Remodeling an Icon Structural Integration Building News From Bentley Civil Greenfield Airport Takes Flight Good Neighbors Collaborative Innovation Civil News From Bentley Advertisers Index Geospatial Ring of Fiber Revolutionizing Integrity Management Port City Transformation In Conversation With Greg Bentley Geospatial News From Bentley Plant Single-Source Service Committed to Cleaner Air Expediting Expansion Plant News From Bentley Strength in Numbers The Art of Visualization A Winning Legacy Zero Change Culture: Further Definition A Remarkable Collaboration With a Forward-Thinking Community

BE Magazine - Volume 4, Issue 4

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