Pulling on Threads 🧵

If you're not familiar with me or my professional journey, I've spent a significant part of my life trying to find ways to weave together technology, interactive media, architecture, sustainability, and the built environment as a whole.

I'm an architect by training, so I've done a bit of... well, building buildings (I dare say some amazing ones). But I've also spent over a decade in the tech world, collaborating to build a small-but-mighty cleantech startup as well as working with some of the largest companies and institutions to bring new and complex ideas to life.

If there is something that is consistent across all these dabblings, it is that there is always a thread to keep pulling on even after a project comes to its ultimate completion or premature end. Or rather, as I've found time ang again, many threads emerge.

There are always new things to learn. New ideas to explore. New technologies to master. New ways to apply them. New ways to combine them. New ways to share them. New ways to make them accessible to everyone. New ways to make them fun. New ways to make them useful. New ways to make them beautiful. New ways to make them sustainable. New ways to make them better.

From the sophisticated landscapes of energy intelligence at Palmetto, to the innovative realms of Mapdwell, our MIT-spinoff that dove deep into clean energy and building technology, to the physical world of architecture and real estate finance and development at MoDe Studio, our endeavors have consistently aimed at shaping the way we perceive, optimize, and interact with our surroundings. And after all these adventures, alas there are still many threads to continue pulling on – many ideas, technologies, and skills worth revisiting or worthy of a deeper dive in a fresh context.

As I embark on a new chapter following my tenure at Palmetto, I am carving out an online space here to serve as a pin board for long-form content delving into what I consider some of the most groundbreaking ideas shaping the future of buildings and cities (I can't guarantee a few wild tangents won't sneak in too...). Expect deep dives into reality capture, earth observation, generative AI, digital twins, architectural tooling, human-computer interfaces, and whoknowswhatelse.

Topics you can expect to find here, in some form or another, should include:

1. Reality Capture – The process of capturing the physical world in digital form. This includes 3D scanning, photogrammetry, and other techniques (LiDAR and NeRFs and Gaussian Splats, oh my) that allow us to create digital twins of our physical world.
2. Machine Learning & Generative AI – The use of deep learning and artificial intelligence to extract insight and generate new ideas, designs, and solutions.
3. Digital Twins – Digital replicas of physical objects or systems. These digital counterparts allow for real-time monitoring, simulation, and optimization based on real-world data.
4. Architectural Tooling – The application of digital tools in designing new structures and refining existing ones. These tools also can also play a role in democratizing the architectural design process.
5. Human-Computer Interfaces – How we interact with physical and digital spaces. This includes the use of augmented reality, virtual reality, and other technologies to create new ways of interacting with our surroundings.
6. Sustainability - Leveraging building technology for a sustainable future. This involves using technology to optimize energy use and improve the design of buildings and urban layouts for environmental efficiency and reduced carbon footprint.
7. Clean Energy - How we can use clean energy to create a more sustainable future. This includes the use of applied science and AI to optimize energy consumption and plan distributed energy resources like solar PV and battery storage.
8. Nostalgia & Pop Culture - Where our conceptions of the future come from, and how they shape our built environment and its perception. This includes the use of science fiction and pop culture to inspire new ideas and designs. 🤖
9. Graphical Representation - How we represent the world (and ideas!) around us, and how we can conceive new technologies and methods to create novel ways of representing the world around us and possible futures.
10. Design Access - How we can democratize the design process and make it more accessible to everyone. Architecture has mostly been the domain of the wealthy and few, but it doesn't have to be. We can use technology to make it more accessible to everyone: Toward a New Architecture for the 99%.

... and many more 🤔

But for now, all you need to know is this: this blog/newsletter is the commencement of something I've never really done before – writing out loud. I've spent the last decade (plus) in the trenches and kept most of the discussion and reading internal to private 🔒, even secret 🤐, venues. I am eager to share insights, provoke thoughts, and instigate discussions around the technologies and innovations that will define our built environment in the years to come.

Stay tuned for the unveiling of – I hope – rich, illuminating, life-altering content 😉. The future of our built world is digital, interactive, and brimming with potential. Let's see what we can make of it...