NXT BLD 2025

Introduction to NXT BLD

We’ll showcase how we, at Heatherwick studio apply innovation through our processes to empower our designers and increase impact. We’ll use real-world projects to dive into our workflows and demonstrate how we applied our research from ideation through human-centred analysis, to delivery.

Perkins&Will’s Digital Practice has grown from project-based innovation into a firmwide structure organized around four streams: Digital Design & Delivery, Innovation & Development, Education, and Advisory Services. In this talk, Nick Cameron shares how this framework is positioning the firm to meet growing client demands, manage increasing project complexity, and prepare for the next generation of AI tools that are beginning to shape the future of architectural practice.

.

Synopsis

The AEC industry has long been built on information — drawings, models, documentation. But information alone is no longer enough. As complexity rises and expectations shift, we need collaborative systems that can reason, adapt, and respond to design intent. This talk explores how the next generation of tools — grounded in intelligence, not just data — will retool the way we imagine, design, and deliver buildings. Welcome to the age of Agentic Building Modeling — where creativity is supported, not constrained, by intelligent, inclusive, and intent-driven systems.

.

.

Over the last six years at Hypar, we’ve been exploring what the right kind of automation looks like for building design — powerful enough to capture expert logic, simple enough for anyone to use, and smart enough to learn and adapt over time. In this talk, I’ll share how we’ve evolved from a scripting platform into a design environment that offers intelligent suggestions, captures firm-specific expertise, and helps teams move faster without losing control. But more importantly, I’ll show where we’re headed: toward a future where automation doesn’t just execute your intent — it anticipates it, adapts to your standards, and makes every project a little smarter than the last.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Synopsis

.

.

Synopsis

Synopsis

Synopsis

Architects and engineers are forced to make critical design decisions well ahead of constructibility realities. AI will automate the detailed and constructible design of building systems, compressing months of work into hours while providing immediate insight into performance, cost, and constructibility at the earliest design stages. Join Augmenta's CPO and co-founder, Aaron Szymanski, as he charts our path to this future and showcases a real-world project where AI modelled and coordinated a complete electrical system for a school that has been successfully built—the first of its kind and proof that integrated design and construction intelligence isn't just possible, it's here today.

With groundbreaking innovation and a growing number of more advanced AI technologies around every corner of the AECO industry, it can sometimes be daunting to understand not only how, but where and more importantly when you should get started on tackling the onslaught of AI that can and likely will affect the workflow of many inside the AEC industry. In this session, learn how the latest workstation technology trends and updates can transform the industry you work in, and get help demystifying buzz-word AI bingo vs. real-world workflows that your teams operate in every day.

.

.

.

.

.

Al is transforming the AEC industry by eliminating tedious processes and boosting productivity. In this talk, we will explore Al solutions for Planning, Design, Engineering, Construction, Operations, and Administration. In doing so we will cover the basics of Al – including Training, Fine Tuning, RAG, Inference, Generative Al, Data Science, and Radiance Fields. We will also discuss the use of Digital Twins for training synthetic data for construction robotics and similar use cases, and simulating projects before deployment in the real world. Finally, we will explore how all these technologies can be used to achieve sustainability objectives for Datacenter design.

.

Giraffe is a common data environment used by architects, developers, and governments to mash up design, planning, and finance in real time. It breaks the old BIM silos, blends in GIS, and turns spatial data into a live decision-making tool—blurring the lines between who designs, who decides, and who pays. Bonus: you can do visual programming inside, just like Grasshopper.

In 2025, architects and urban designers still face a basic, frustrating question at the start of every project: where is the context model? Despite the explosion of AEC tools and digital workflows, site context data—whether GIS or 3D—remains patchy, low quality, or locked in unusable formats.

In this talk, we explore why this foundational step in design has been overlooked for so long, and how improving it can unlock better, faster decision-making across the AEC stack. He’ll share how Cityweft is addressing the problem by making high-quality, geospatially accurate context models accessible in clean, interoperable formats—so that the industry can stop wasting time assembling the basics, and start designing.

Strap in for a fast-paced demo-rich session where Michael Hoppe shows how today’s architects and developers are ditching PDFs and jumping into live, generative cities. You'll witness how AI is now driving real-time zoning checks, instant AR previews on-site, and even cinematic renders in minutes—not hours. Whether you're designing a home or planning an entire district, this talk will change the way you see the future of architectural design.

.

In an era where Ai tools can conjure architectural visions within a few keystrokes, a critical question arises: How do we translate AI-generated designs into tangible, buildable structures? Can Ai also translate its own creation into a buildable reality? Architect Tal Friedman, a pioneer in parametric and generative design, addresses this challenge head-on.

Generative Ai is at its core what French Philosopher Jean Baudrillard described as “simulacra” (singular: simulacrum)- A simulation of a simulation. A hyper reality of something that never existed. It resembles what we perceive to be true, but only to the minimal extent needed. For this reason, Ai generation can be both highly productive and deceiving at the same time.

In this compelling talk, Architect and Foldstruct CEO Tal Friedman, delves into the transformative potential of Ai and Fabrication Integrated Modeling (FIM), a methodology that harmonizes generative design with real-world construction constraints.

.