What you are about to hear is part 2 of a 2-part phone conversation with Terry Bennett of Autodesk, Donna Huey with Atkins, and Marty Janowitz with Stantec. All three will be featured in a panel discussion titled Building Resilient Infrastructure for Future Clients at the upcoming October American Council of Engineering Companies 2015 Fall conference, October 14 through 17 in Boston.

In Part 2 to follow Terry opens by asking Donna and Marty, relative to cloud, IoT, sensors, reality computing, BIM, and more - Can these technologies help us refine even reset what the key demand from cities will and should be to impact the products we produce like resilient infrastructure?

He then concludes the conversation by asking Donna and Marty, as a way to provide a sneak peek at what they will share during the panel discussion, what each feels is one key component ACEC attendees NEED need to hear, and why they should attend The "Building Resilient Infrastructure for Future Clients" session.

This part 1 of a phone conversation with Terry Bennett of Autodesk, Donna Huey with Atkins, and Marty Janowitz with Stantec. All three will be featured in a panel discussion titled Building Resilient Infrastructure for Future Clients at the upcoming October American Council of Engineering Companies 2015 Fall conference, October 14 through 17 in Boston.

This is part 1 of a 2-part podcast series that provides a sneak peek at what these experts will be sharing.

In Part 1 to follow, Terry asks Donna and Marty to define resilient infrastructure. Then Terry asks each what is the first key element to building more resilient infrastructure.

In this podcast, hosted by Angela Simoes of Autodesk, hear Brian Young, Sustainable Infrastructure Product Manager for Autodesk discuss how green space is “good politics”. The interview opens by defining what green spaces are, and then Brian focuses on a key benefit of how green spaces impact a community's water by absorbing this precious resource. Next, they touch on how cities around the world are now pushing for green infrastructure, followed by an examination of the “big question” today - how to measure the financial [quantitative] benefits to justify both green space and green infrastructure investments. Brian explains that new tools such as AutoCASE are available to help assign dollar values to these projects. Angela then asks Brian about responses by the public, e.g. in Philadelphia, to green infrastructure proposals. The conversation ends on how water management is changing from a centralized to a more distributed, flexible approach as cities redevelop.

Hear Phil Bernstein, Vice President for Strategic Industry Relations at Autodesk discuss the ideas he shared in his Line//Space//Shape commentary "Future of Construction: Your Next Building Won’t Be Built—It Will Be Manufactured". Phil notes a key trend in AEC for more parts of buildings being pre-fabricated, with manufacturing practices coming into play more than ever before. A combination of factors impacting this trend: 1.emergence of digitally driven ways to "make things" [robotics, laser scanning, etc. - technologies that make it easier to close the gap between the real world and digital design]; 2, financial crisis of the "big recession" changed the makeup of the construction workforce reduced the workforce, with younger people not going into construction; 3, barriers to computer manufacturing costs have gone down, and a new generation of designers coming out of schools with experience in such things as 3D printing. All factors driving pre-fabrication for buildings.

In this podcast, Dave Simeone of Autodesk shares the mid-year updates for Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D 2016. Dave describes improvements related to the key initiative of enabling interoperability and co-existence between Autodesk civil engineering software and Bentley civil engineering solutions. Other enhancements for subscribers of AutoCAD Civil 3D are highlighted as well.

Hear a phone conversation with Adam Spring -- a noted business development professional and expert in 3D reality capture workflows and markets - and Angela Simoes of Autodesk discussing the evolution of reality capture and computing, and its impact on the AEC industry. The interview opens with how reality capture and computing is being incorporated today within a building design lifecycle, including what Adam sees as a shift from productivity computing to creative computing. Angela then asks Adam now designers can get started with reality capture and computing. Other topics Adam addresses include the "Visual Age of Information" with new tools and technologies to communicate with building project stakeholders [e.g. Autodesk ReCap with its fly-through capabilities]. The interview concludes with Adam commenting on the latest advancements in reality capture and computing, citing the work of the German firm Christofori Und Partner; Holograms from Zebra Imaging; and a Bay Area firm PhaseSpace augmented reality for mobile phones.

Hear Kal Houhou of Martinez + Johnson Architecture [a firm specializing in theater and performing arts center design] discuss how cloud services are transforming and fostering a more collaborative BIM workflow to support a collaborative design process between geographically dispersed teams. Kal notes the time and cost savings value of Collaboration for Revit, A360 and FormIt 360 as cloud-based solutions for design and communications. Kal also discusses use of ReCap 360 for “as built” capture to quickly create 3D models. The interview ends with Kal offering advice to fellow AEC firms considering the adoption of a cloud-based, collaborative workflow model.

Earlier this year [2015] the US Supreme Court blocked an Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] regulation meant to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants. Many states challenged the EPA proposal citing extreme cost burdens it would have imposed. In this podcast, Emma Stewart, head of sustainability solutions at Autodesk, discusses how this outcome could have all been avoided.

Hear Monica Schnitger, Schnitger Corporation, respond to the question, “What excites you most about today’s AEC technologies, and where do you think we may be in five years?” Monica notes that the world is now at a strategic inflection point recognizing the need to address our global infrastructure and building challenges; and cloud technology helping smaller firms compete, reality computing and capture will help move us in a positive future direction.