Inside perspective of an Architect & Founder | Rayon x seg — Transcript

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1. 0:00My name is Phillip. I'm running a small
2. 0:02architectural practice in Berlin,
3. 0:04Germany. We are mainly
4. 0:06preoccupied with steering managing large
5. 0:10public sector projects. We've we've come
6. 0:14to realize that these become more I
7. 0:17don't know more sustainability issues as
8. 0:19time
9. 0:22progresses, more public involvement,
10. 0:25more stakeholders. So we ventured into
11. 0:28finding new tools for architecture and
12. 0:30design in 2023. A sort of uh artificial
13. 0:34intelligence, a big hype which kind of
14. 0:37prompted investigating what's new there
15. 0:40and what might be worth making our work
16. 0:43better and easier. I think this is how
17. 0:45we how we finally came across rayon
18. 0:48which I think we're going to talk about
19. 0:50today. How do you understand and meet
20. 0:52clients needs? We are predominantly
21. 0:54working on large institutional projects
22. 0:57which have very specific and complex
23. 1:00sets of requirements. The sorting or
24. 1:04translating these requirements into a
25. 1:06plan and into something that everybody
26. 1:09around the table understands I think is
27. 1:11one of the key miracle ingredients in
28. 1:13order to get the project kickarted and
29. 1:15to get everybody on board. You're
30. 1:18meeting a whole host of client
31. 1:20representatives, stakeholders,
32. 1:22municipality, and to find into the
33. 1:25project and to sort of being able to
34. 1:28sort of present a concept and a plan and
35. 1:31to sort of demonstrate on this is how
36. 1:33we're going to translate your demands
37. 1:36requirements into a building is key to a
38. 1:39successful project. What's your typical
39. 1:41design process? translating the
40. 1:43requirements into a sequence of spaces
41. 1:46and rooms. So our projects are usually
42. 1:49being designed from inside out from
43. 1:52basically finding the right spatial fit
44. 1:55inside the building and then developing
45. 1:58a building form out of the functional
46. 2:00requirements uh which you find inside
47. 2:02the building. If you take a hospital or
48. 2:05school for example or an airport, I
49. 2:07think that's pretty easy to understand
50. 2:09of finding the right form. And as I said
51. 2:11earlier, we've got all sorts of user
52. 2:14groups interested in little aspects and
53. 2:17to sort of being able to uh take them
54. 2:20along and present them with a a concept
55. 2:23or a drawing where they can find their
56. 2:26requirements that they can understand. I
57. 2:28think that's key uh to starting the
58. 2:30project. So clarity of communication and
59. 2:33taking everybody along um is a big part
60. 2:36in in meeting clients needs. Can you
61. 2:38give an example of a creative solution
62. 2:40you've used? I think the one solution I
63. 2:43feel proudest about is how we've been
64. 2:46given basically a design brief where the
65. 2:49the client already had a sort of a pre
66. 2:51and early concept developed a functional
67. 2:54concept which basically used the
68. 2:56entirety of the site which involved
69. 2:59almost without question the eradication
70. 3:02of a very nice wooden belt which sort of
71. 3:05shielded the facility from view and sort
72. 3:08of gave it a pocket almost inside a
73. 3:10forest. so that the surrounding areas
74. 3:12were almost untouched by the
75. 3:15intervention. And in the brief, it was
76. 3:18clear to the client that all of that
77. 3:19should go and we'll just put a big
78. 3:21facility on the site visible to
79. 3:23everybody, including the necessary
80. 3:26managing of uh public expectation of
81. 3:29what this would look like. So, replace
82. 3:32forest for hopefully pretty
83. 3:33architecture. And we could convince the
84. 3:36client that he could sort of restructure
85. 3:39his functional needs and and pretty much
86. 3:41incorporate all of his functional needs
87. 3:43in within one compact building which had
88. 3:45a much smaller footprint, much smaller
89. 3:48envelope and could retain this existing
90. 3:51forest or belt of a forest. And I felt
91. 3:54quite proud that we could sort of save
92. 3:56these trees and come up with a nice
93. 3:58beautiful compact architecture that you
94. 4:00would only discover once you sort of
95. 4:02entered the forest and then sort of went
96. 4:05through that part of the design. How has
97. 4:07Ryan improved your design process
98. 4:09compared to the tools you've used
99. 4:11previously for an architectural practice
100. 4:14that is sort of fully emerged in vim
101. 4:16planning and 3D modeling of digital
102. 4:19twins going a fair number of step
103. 4:21backwards and go back rediscovering a
104. 4:24tool that just focuses on creating a
105. 4:28very simple but beautiful plan and
106. 4:30basically reducing your message to what
107. 4:33you can actually get on a
108. 4:34two-dimensional screen or on a
109. 4:36two-dimensional piece of paper. So
110. 4:37rather than extracting imagery out of a
111. 4:40out of a model, which is okay for 3D
112. 4:42visualizations, but not so okay when you
113. 4:45generate 2D plans from it, you get back
114. 4:48to sort of a very reduced keep it simple
115. 4:52core message of what you want to say.
116. 4:54And there is es especially for the early
117. 4:57design stages when it is as I said
118. 4:59earlier when it is about the finding the
119. 5:02right fit for this functional organism
120. 5:04that you're about to design whether it's
121. 5:06a school or something else is the sort
122. 5:08of to get this kind of clarity on paper
123. 5:10and focus yourself on what actually is
124. 5:13the core message you want to communicate
125. 5:15I found very surprising when starting to
126. 5:18work with rayon and I think it's an it's
127. 5:20an important contribution to a software
128. 5:23ware environment which by now is almost
129. 5:26completely focused on BIM and 3D
130. 5:29modeling environments. So this is this
131. 5:31is how it improved how how Rayon
132. 5:34improved our design process by basically
133. 5:37going back forcing yourself to keep it
134. 5:39simple going back to sort of just just
135. 5:42uh use the typology and the tools that
136. 5:45are necessary to sort of convey a core
137. 5:47message. We're generally living in a
138. 5:49world with just too much information
139. 5:51around us. And I think that's
140. 5:53particularly true for architecture and
141. 5:55and the tools that we're using. And
142. 5:57there's so much you can create and
143. 6:00assemble and communicate that it's all
144. 6:03too easy to sort of lose the core
145. 6:05message. Suddenly everybody says, "I get
146. 6:08it. I understand it. I find myself." And
147. 6:11going back to the beginning of the
148. 6:12conversation, that's key to basically
149. 6:14taking everybody along in a large design
150. 6:16team. I think it's it's great that
151. 6:18there's sort of such a variety of new
152. 6:21attempts and new approaches and and the
153. 6:23young generation trying to sort of take
154. 6:24a fresh take and I think there's a lot
155. 6:26to be said to basically create tools
156. 6:29that fit into sort of the 21st century
157. 6:32and our current today and that are not
158. 6:36sort of version 31st 32nd of something
159. 6:39that has originally been designed in the
160. 6:42early 90s way before internet internet
161. 6:45collaboration and so tools have been
162. 6:47available. There's a lot to be said
163. 6:49about this development and great hopes
164. 6:51that this will be catching on 100%.
165. 6:54[Music]