Dubai, UAE, 8 May 2018: Autodesk University (AU) Middle East focused on emerging global trends within the built environment, during the inauguration of the conference’s sixth edition, on May 7, in Dubai. The two-day conference aims to showcase the latest innovations and applications in the field of 3D Printing, Generative Design, AR, VR and BIM 360 in the context of sustainability and optimising construction materials. Mohammad Saleh, Regional Head, Autodesk, gave the welcome address and spoke on social, economic and technological trends particularly in view of IoT, cloud computing and data. “Data fuels everything,” he said. “The integrity, consistency, availability – it becomes more available moving forward.” Saleh touched on the importance of disruptive innovation in view of Dubai 10x, which positions the country to be ahead of other cities in the world. Looking at broader developments in the GCC region, Saleh also spoke on the ambitious targets of Neom. “Autodesk,” he said, “will be there to help shape and design and make use of things.”

Lynelle Cameron, VP, Sustainability Foundation, Autodesk, elaborated on trends and technologies that will affect society. Emphasising current challenges, Cameron said that there will be 10 billion people by 2050, which will double the demand of energy. In 2050, she said, 75% of people will be living near cities, resulting in a need to build 5,000 buildings per day. “How do we design more things for more people but with less impact on the planet?” Cameron asked. Cameron touched on the three major catalysts for disruption, namely production, connection and augmentation, leading to a more integrated approach to optimise existing solutions.

Uwe Wasserman, Director, Industry Business Development, AEC/ENI Worldwide, Autodesk, spoke on Connected BIM and the move towards digital transformation. He said, “Disruption is all around us. By 2020, 50 billion devices and sensors will be connected to the internet.” Wasserman outlined three eras of disruption. The first, he said, was the era of documentation, which began with the introduction of Autocad. The second, he said, is the era of optimisation driven by Building Information Modelling, which began 15 years ago and has led to significantly lower costs and faster delivery. Moving on to the era of connection, Wasserman elaborates on Connected BIM for 2018 and beyond, which he described as BIM enhanced by cloud computing which, he said, provides unlimited computing power. Cloud computing, he said, solves in real time the most complex analytical problems and can run through design integration steps in real time.

Ayman A. Al-Mousawi, Director, Ministry of Public Works in Kuwait, provided a government perspective on BIM adoption from the government perspective and touched on the benefits, which he said includes reduction of design iterations, RFI’s, Variation/Change Orders and overall cost of the delivery of the facility, improvement in collaboration and coordination between departments with the ministry and adoption of more informed decision-making by depending on BIM models for design visualisation and collaboration. Moreover, Al-Mousawi said, BIM provides a more accurate estimated budget by the end of the design phase, helps speed-up getting approvals from other governmental entities during the design phase and reduce waste and paper-based production. Al-Mousawi also spoke on the importance of optimising BIM competence and the importance of changing mindsets for greater adoption and awareness of its benefits and value to projects.

Hannah Jo Uy is Features Writer at Climate Control Middle East magazine. She may be contacted at hannah@cpi-industry.com