Creating Smart Buildings And Healthier Urban Environments, Ft. Winka Dubbeldam From Archi-Tectonics

Creating Smart Buildings and Healthier Urban Environments, ft. Winka Dubbeldam from Archi-Tectonics
===

[00:00:00]

Stephen Drew: Hello everyone. It's a Thursday evening, but maybe if you are other parts of the world, it's lunchtime, who knows? Strap in. Get your sandwich, get your glass of wine. Whatever you do, it's all good. You might actually wanna watch this one cause we got some beautiful buildings as well. Yeah, I know.

Not just an audio. Only one today. 15 seconds.

Okay. Water bottle at the ready. Hello everyone and welcome to this livestream special wherever you are in the world. I'm super thrilled because this is not just me in the uk. We're going Trans-Atlantic to the one of the busiest places in the world. I was saying with [00:01:00] my guests before, it's noisy, it's busy, it can be rude and brash, but it's super, super cool and I love it.

And that's why we've got today Winka Doable Dam at Arki Tectonics all the way. From New York City, Winka, how are you?

Winka Dubbeldam: I am good. Thank you for the beautiful introduction.

Stephen Drew: I'm so glad you're here. Now, Winka, actually, I'll be honest we've spoken for a few minutes before, but we hadn't really met even before that. It was actually your car office, which kindly reached out, and I've been learning about your Architecture and your career. But for anyone that is perhaps not so familiar with the stuff that you've done, can you tell me briefly about yourself?

Winka Dubbeldam: Yeah, sure. So although I am in New York I'm originally from Holland. I came here to study at Columbia University, forgot to leave. So I've been here for a while. The office here, Architect Tos, is in Wall Street in the bottom, the tip of Manhattan. Most of the people here [00:02:00] live across in Brooklyn, and we take the ferry, so we're a little Euro-centric.

I'm originally from Holland. My partner is German the office is a small version of the un, some Chinese people, some Latin Americans, some Americans. So it's a nice compilation. And we also work all over the world. So we currently, actually, since you're there, building a house in London we finished a project, a large project in China.

We did some work in Paris. We do a lot of work here, of course, in New York. But yeah, it's it's a fun, it's a fun place.

Stephen Drew: Brilliant. I've gotta be honest, I'm gonna bring this up again because I spelled the practice name wrong while I was rushing to prepare this. So it is architects and I'm super excited for it. So I'm gonna bring some of your work up in the background while we talk so that, people can have a little bit of an eye candy.

But you mentioned in particular a little bit of the drive behind what you do. And I'd love to know in, in your words, Then what kind [00:03:00] of Architecture do you aspire to make when you do all your projects? Winker?

Winka Dubbeldam: It is a, this is a typical question we architects get. It's not so much yours, but people ask what your specialization is because most, some architects specialize in hospitals or housing or whatever. We typically answer. We specialize in innovation because we like to think of the future.

We like to think of. How do we think how Architecture is built? Designs? We love robotics. So we tend to go far future, this is actually the stadium we just built, but then we build it like a hybrid, so also like a concert hall. And that's what we like to think about. The idea is what I'm mostly writing about as I'm.

Going in a conference for the un next week in Copenhagen is synthetic natures. And it's very much thinking about nature as it's built by us humans. Mostly the world, I think is currently, I think, what is it, 70% built by humans instead of natural wild as we used to think [00:04:00] nature is. But also to, to think of Architecture as learning from plant intelligence.

So we like to serve these edges.

Stephen Drew: I think it's very interesting. And you mentioned in particular this Asian games stadium, and I've got a little bit of eye candy here. So this is a recent project that you've completed. Quite a big one. Can you tell me a little bit more about this one in particular, perhaps.

Winka Dubbeldam: Yeah, it's not just the stadium, it's actually the full park. So it's 1.6 kilometers long two stadiums, five other buildings. But what was the real challenge was that the Chinese government thought of it as 85% park although they wanted seven buildings. A bit of a challenge and Typically these projects don't walk into your office.

It's a competition. So this was also an invited competition, five international Architecture offices competed. And I like to think that we won because we broke the rules.

Stephen Drew: Oh.

Winka Dubbeldam: Which [00:05:00] is always an interesting one, right? And so the one thing we did is we made the stadiums, the two stadiums, hybrids, as you can see here, this is one of them.

So this particular one is a stadium and a concert hall, and the reason why we did that is, Because the client came with the idea that the park had to be sustainable, a sponge city as they call it, which means it absorbs storm water and rain and filters the water and it irrigates the park. So then we propose why don't we do the buildings and also sustainable?

And we make them hybrids so you don't get an empty building after the Asian games, which is

So making it a hybrid also started to drive a little bit of the strange form coming by here. Because by making it an intersection of two volumes we felt you were getting something that doesn't look like a standard topology or one liner.

You would get some, a building that makes you wonder what it is, where you wanna discover. And then inside it's very fluid and very easy [00:06:00] to change from concert hall to stadium without actually rebuilding or reorganizing anything.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Winka Dubbeldam: So it was a fun, fun challenge that we put for ourselves. But what was the extra benefit is that we got more money because now it was a permanent building.

You see the scale here, so square meters and these. Guys are sitting on top of the building installing this glass D grid. So it's a quite a large scale, as you can see 400 people on site for the seven buildings every day. So I have huge respect for the contractor. But yeah, it was really interesting.

We, China is often the way that architects are not so involved in this case. I think for several reasons we were very much involved. One was they had a very short timeframe. We won this. May, 2018, and it was finished in May, 2022, originally to open last September, but because of Covid, they're playing it this September.

[00:07:00] So we had a year to grow the park, and as you can see, sustainability in the traditional sense was also a really big thing. So the building naturally breeds and we all need to show the seats of the viewers. Then the cooling comes from the wetlands we built next door, or we stored next door. So yeah.

Stephen Drew: it looks amazing.

Winka Dubbeldam: Yeah. So here you see the lobby. It's a 30 meter high lobby. So funny enough, COVID was a, of course a huge restriction, but because of Covid we did the site visits with drones, which actually I realized after the fact was a much better way to investigate or do the supervision of a building. 30 meters high is essentially one story.

No scaffolding. So the in innovation of the contractor was that he built everything with teeny ween cranes. Very smart. We saved, I think, 200 tons of steel on this building. There's no columns, as you can see. So it's a fun, fun little creature.

Stephen Drew: I think it's absolutely amazing [00:08:00] and I as well, I think 10 out of 10 for your patience with me clicking cause it's me driving all this, which is, so unfortunately I'm clicking around, but I, it's it gives a beautiful impression and I'm gonna bring up your website quickly cuz I do think it's one of the.

Better ones that I've seen in, in, in a long time. And that's not to discredit anyone else's website. It's just a nice website. But one thing I wanted to ask is, obviously this is a huge scale and you touched upon earlier that you've done lots of different projects and different typologies. Other than the.

The really interesting stadium. Can you give, maybe gimme a flavor of the roots of of your practice and the kind of stuff that you've seen over the years, which has been quite a learning curve.

Winka Dubbeldam: Yeah, I can I can start, for example, with our first building, which is cute. And you can find it if you go to residential on the left. By the way, this website is designed by W S D I A, my favorite graphic designers here in

Stephen Drew: Shout[00:09:00]

Winka Dubbeldam: New York. Yeah, really great. On the bottom left there, you see a folded glass building.

Oh, nope.

Stephen Drew: Oh, have I gone past it? I've gone past

Winka Dubbeldam: On the bottom where you were before. So go up

Stephen Drew: Okay. I'm

Winka Dubbeldam: up. Yeah. Here you see that one? Yeah.

Stephen Drew: this one. Okay, cool.

Winka Dubbeldam: was the first kind of building we did, which is really was an an English client actually. I did originally a loft for he wanted to invest a little bit in buildings.

I was here, so I was gonna find something. I was originally looking, Brooklyn, was already very expensive, didn't work very well, and lo and behold, I walked by. My favorite little bar, we do that too here in New York was this warehouse. You see a little corner over it there for sale. And I was like interesting.

This could be good, empty warehouse. Maybe it's a project, so I. Called the broker and he's yeah. And there's a site next door. So it turned out that the 50 foot wide building, which 15 meters I guess right? 50, [00:10:00] yeah, 15 meters. Had a 50 meter lot next door also. So hence what we built is if you go a few further.

Yeah, that one's good. So here you see the little studies we did with zoning because we built essentially a building three times bigger. Next and over it. Which was a fun exercise. And the neighborhood loved it because we kept the existing warehouse. You could have essentially just killed the existing warehouse and put a big office block, but we felt let's do just a sweet little residential building.

So we started looking at the zoning and what I liked is the zoning envelope was, in New York, usually buildings are setback for light and air, and they step. Back like this, but actually zoning code is a plane, an in incline plane. So I started playing with these incline planes, intersected them on the top and the bottom, and suddenly I had a wavy glass facade that was folding in and out.

And [00:11:00] then to make things interesting, we decided to fold the glass. First project, remember, first project in 98, I think. Yeah, the glass turned out to be able to be folded in Barcelona. The moans were excluded in Hong Kong, so this was the, in, in Architecture, as we know, we have something called parametric.

So this in maybe in 98 was one of the first parametric projects where we never send drawings to the fabricators, but a 3D model from the computer with. X, y, z points cuz that was the only way to get the glass folded, to match the moans extruded, glass fold the Barcelona, moans Hong Kong and get the whole thing on site.

So it was an interesting exercise in precise fit.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Winka Dubbeldam: Yeah hear you see it being installed by these guys who are absolutely fearless.

Stephen Drew: Wow. My goodness.

Winka Dubbeldam: very interesting.

Stephen Drew: I bet there was a few heads being scratched in the glass factory thinking, my [00:12:00] goodness, this is definitely an ambitious one. But I think it looks amazing. I was gonna ask you as well, because I love projects as well, but it's just interesting to know as well the kind of culture of your Architecture practice.

Now, if, what would be interesting, cuz I'm familiar with practices in the uk but can you kind, you visualize for anyone that maybe Hasn't steps inside your practice, your office, what's a typical day-to-day like for you at the moment?

Winka Dubbeldam: Yeah I think one thing I maybe didn't say, but I'm also the chair of Architecture at the part, at the university. So my day-to-day is hectic. I have two full-time jobs. Thank God I have a business partner here, so that's definitely the big savior. Justin Core Hammer is my business partner, and then we have an office.

We never, we. And it was for me also early on, a decision to have an office, like a laboratory, which means we keep it 12, 15 people. It's very horizontal. Everyone does every aspect [00:13:00] of everything. So we don't have a layer of people doing only drawings and people designing and people managing essentially.

We like to think that every project gets one of the partners on it. With someone from the office, we work hand in hand and other people jump in and out. But we're all one big. Horizontal layer and you know that of course some people get trained, other people are very experienced. But like in general, we like to think that everyone's equal and that, we only hire architects.

No one is just a draftsperson. Everyone can really have the full experience of what it is to work on innovative Architecture. We love it that way. We have great consultants, fantastic landscape, Architect milk also Dutch office in the same building. We have great engineers here in New York.

My dog is walking around.

Stephen Drew: I love dogs. Don't worry. It's all good.

Winka Dubbeldam: That's our HR department.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, exactly. The quick que quick, very important question. What is the breed of your beautiful [00:14:00] dog?

Winka Dubbeldam: ah. He is a Golden Doodle and his name is Boy named after Coco Chanel's lover.

Stephen Drew: Wow. My goodness. I ironically, I have a Boston Terrier called Dexter, so there we go. They're that. Yeah. And the amazing

Winka Dubbeldam: We should do another session on dogs also.

Stephen Drew: Yeah I think so. There's, do you know there's a quick there's a competition in the UK where architects submit dog sheds and stuff. I

Winka Dubbeldam: Oh, I know that one.

Stephen Drew: Have you, I think we, after seeing all that glass and stuff, I think you do a pretty good one if you haven't not ready.

So you should enter and make a dog kennel,

Winka Dubbeldam: this guy doesn't wanna be in boxes. Sadly,

Stephen Drew: Maybe that's how you can look at your brief, isn't it? But I tell you what, sorry. I.

Winka Dubbeldam: in boxes. Yeah.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. No I digress. But what's really interesting, you talked about that, and thank you for visualizing the the practice. But a lot of the listeners, especially in the Architecture, Social and the uk, and we have quite a lot in the US actually, but the demographic, which is quite cool, it's [00:15:00] quite broad.

So it's recent graduates all the way up to project architects or. Hopefully, the range is there, but where I'm getting that is that there's a lot of people in Na Korea right now moving along. And you are in the university circuit, in academia, in, in the US and you showed a brave project.

So I'm just wondering what's your current loose thoughts then of how one would go about their career in 2023 as an Architect?

Winka Dubbeldam: Yeah, no, it's super interesting. I had a meeting this morning with my students because we're submitting for COP 28, which is in Dubai in December. And I was telling them, it's really important if you do a beautiful project, because I think nowadays, I'm jealous of our students.

We have robotics, we have 3D printers, we have. Everything is 3D on the computer. It's so much fun. I grew up manually and just at the end of it, I managed to get computer stuff in and very, I graduated the very first little wire animation, [00:16:00] but, but then I stayed digital. And I think that it's a really interesting future.

So I think the, actually the future for the Architect is very good. As long as you have an argument. I have learned in my practice that. You can make any difficult building any weird shape, any interest that you have sustainable wise, or technology wise or robotic influences, whatever you want to do, as long as you have an argument for it, and it's very important.

So we had that discussion this morning. I was like, you should show all the beautiful stuff you have done, but you have to create the argument. Because you're going into a sustainability conference, you and you have thought about it, and you need to get the data. You need to back up your story. You need to get the arguments straight.

And then that's, otherwise we're not gonna be able to send it in. And also an interesting discussion because they are amazing designers. Our students are very good and I love them and but they are wooly about the argument. There is an argument. But it's not really scientifically funded.

And I think if [00:17:00] you wanna go into the big world out there and make a point on what you want to build and how you want to build it, you do need to get these scientific points across. And, to, I had a discussion with Toma the other day. He asked me to moderate the launch of his new book.

I'll plug his new book, M three in New York, and. We had that discussion on, if you do really intense work, which obviously Morpheus does, then you have to essentially, you don't have to talk about the design of it. The design is clear, you make beautiful drawings. We're very good, all in renderings and showing that what you talk about is really, why is it working?

Why does the building work? Why is it what they need? How is it better than other buildings? And I think that's a really big argument. We did. Probably for the Asian Games, the competition we won that you just showed. The reason why we won, I think in the end is we broke the rules. So we had another concept, but we also had the most [00:18:00] complex buildings, the most complex ideas, but fully calculated structures with an amazing engineer here, Thornton Tomasetti.

And by do, by combining a few things, it's super sustainable. It's beau, it's complex. Aesthetically, but it's fully calculated as a structure. I think that was ultimately what helped them decide to go for the most complex project that was in the five proposals,

Stephen Drew: Yeah,

Winka Dubbeldam: and we managed to build it in time, which as well, thanks to the contractor of course, but yeah, it is.

Yeah.

Stephen Drew: It looks beautiful and I love what you were saying about having the argument there because I think at the moment as well, one of the key things is that we're seeing the, especially in mainstream as well as Architecture, the conversation around artificial intelligence as a tool, and I think that some people are, has been, oh my goodness, oh, I should be worried as an Architect that we're gonna get replaced.

And I don't see it like that. I think it's a tool that can be used because like [00:19:00] the whole nature of. What even chat g p t is, it's a text it's an interface where you have to enter a text prompt. And I was just wondering quickly if you could touch upon maybe your evolving thoughts on that. Artificial intelligence.

Winka Dubbeldam: What is super interesting, like in the end it's your brain.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Winka Dubbeldam: You can make, look, you can make anything look amazing, but it's your brain that will be able to, don't forget artificial intelligence, especially the imaging of office. It's completely flat. You get a photo, right?

It's a flat photo. And what is sweet or sometimes scary to hear non architects reacting to it because they see this beautiful, a glass house in the rocks and waterfall in front, and they're like, where is this? I want to live here. I was like, eh. It was just like a prompt, waterfall, rock, glasshouse.

That's it. And that's how it looks. And it's funny that the software has taste, I like that. It's interesting because what comes out is very often very beautiful [00:20:00] or at least weird and beautiful. Which is my favorite. I actually like ugly and weird, but yeah. And in the end, it's a beautiful image, but you have to, in, as an Architect, I always say we do 10% design and 90% is to defend that design and get it built and get it structurally.

Built in a way that the structure completely fluidly follows what you're doing formally, and that's, these are the real struggles, right? The design is never the struggle. The 10% is not the struggle. The 90% is the struggle, and that's where you convince the client to pay for it. Where you find the site and to build it on, and you make it sustainable.

You save money, you make it faster, and you make it lighter. You. Erase the columns. My favorite thing, I love cantilevers. Engineers always like Winka. No more cantilevers. I'm like, then I don't need an engineer. These kind of things are really like the 90% is really what you are as an Architect.

[00:21:00] And it is, I think it should be a given that the 10%, they making it beautiful. You can do.

Stephen Drew: I think that's beautiful advice I was gonna ask as well because you mentioned it's an exciting time now. What's interesting is that, so then you are an academic, so you're, you are inspiring, but you are also running a practice. So technically in where I'm going, you are an employer, so you probably see a lot of applications and portfolios and I was just wondering if you have any little bit of advice or things that pop in your head of what stands out to you when you see something or what would if it landed on front of your desk, what would you go Wow.

Rather than what would you would go, nah I'm okay.

Winka Dubbeldam: What I think is always really important about portfolio is that your persona in Architecture shines through you as the Architect. So not so much can you make this style. Can you make that style? Have you had enormous months of experience and practice, which [00:22:00] is all good, but I think the more important thing about the portfolios, who are you as an Architect?

What do you want to show you as an Architect and what do you make? Like how personal can you be? Because we are ultimately interested in people that. Our personas and that we of course will train and whatever, because we use very little standard anything. But yeah, in the end, it's really important that you as a persona shine through.

So it's, it develop yourself as a, as an Architect that has a statement and has an idea about what, who you want to be and what you want to make is really important.

Stephen Drew: No, I hear you. And maybe the last point I touch upon that. And so do you see in university that kind of stuff coming out then are you inspired by what at the moment? Is it,

Winka Dubbeldam: Oh my God, I seen do beautiful work. Yeah, absolutely stunning work. It is. It's gone. So we are, however, at Penn, we are hyper. Digital, [00:23:00] robotic vary of the future. So our students can render and model things that are, and also because I think, what we changed in teaching is we seven or eight years ago, we put 3D printers straight in studio.

So realizing that model making became less important and prototyping becomes more and more important. Also the reason, by the way, why in our office we make small projects as well as large projects. So that big complex stadium you saw was very much based on research we did for a. For Inscape, which was a medi, a startup, a meditation startup, and we developed this meditation dome for 45 people from Bamboo as a radio grid.

And it was, I didn't know I was gonna get a stadium after that. But it was very interesting how much I learned from just doing that prototyping we actually did in a car design company in la how much we learned from that and how much was then translated as what we did in the stadium. [00:24:00] To do the, so it's not only designing in the computer and 3D printing.

Prototypes, but also literally using the smaller projects as the innovation driver for a larger project, which is super interesting.

Stephen Drew: I think it is, it's the, it feels to me, dare I say quite an exciting time. And you touched there upon the future, and I feel your palpable excitement as well. Now, you have mentioned quite rightly, that you have built now a massive stadium. So what I was gonna say is, what's next or all, what are you excited about?

Then next, or in the future or where you're going at the, as a practice or the industry as well. I

Winka Dubbeldam: I think I think to me, what is the most interesting development right now is to build buildings from Biometer. So to really understand buildings as. Plants material to lower the carbon footprint, to have our buildings [00:25:00] literally absorb carbon, produce oxygen. So because, construction and households alone are 40 to 50% of the carbon footprint.

So actually as architects, we can change everything. I think it's often people don't like to think about it, but I think it's actually the most interesting thing that is going on where we can actually start to make buildings that are breathing That are creating oxygen and actually reducing, not only not putting more carbon, because I think right now we're being a tiptoeing into sustainability.

Yeah. Let's use a little bit less of the carbon footprint, but what about if we don't have a carbon footprint? What about if we actually reduce it and start to have buildings absorb carbon? So that becomes more what you talked about earlier, the idea of building more, being more plant-like.

Building buildings, 3D printing them from biomatter or even, the, what's a very known thing already is mycelium bricks. [00:26:00] Basically mushroom bricks that grow themselves, right? And then you can stop the growth, but it's also a self-healing material. So once you have piled them up, they heal, they, they close the cracks themselves.

So it's a very interesting way of thinking and it sounds very futuristic, but it actually is completely there already. It's, I think, how do you now make building codes around it and stuff is gonna be interesting, right? But that's more or less the, how do you defend it as a structural thing.

How do you defend it in fire codes and. That kind of thing is the next step. But I think it is where super interesting things are gonna happen, especially with 3D printing buildings which in plant matter in biometer is very possible. So yeah, I can see little LGA algae buildings and whatever.

Stephen Drew: Why not, right? We all come from nature, so it makes sense to return to it. I you touched there upon then innovative stuff and now anyone in the audience, you can ask a question, but [00:27:00] equally, if you are, I don't know, in the evening and having a glass of wine stuff, that's totally cool too. But what I was gonna say, winka, there's probably a lot of research and development that's going on, and earlier before we went live, you.

We talked a little bit about all the books behind yourself, and you flashed up a book that you've done, so Spill the

Winka Dubbeldam: This one. Oh,

Stephen Drew: show a book.

Winka Dubbeldam: it's a weightlifting exercise. This just came out in Europe with okar strange object, new solids and massive things since this was hard to read. We also put it here. Which is the same graphic designer as the website. And inside you'll find a lot of I'll show you one, but very strange objects like this little guy here.

Which actually is made, it's a fashion pavilion made of an English product, which is called Concrete Cloth. It was developed in the sixties for bomb shelters, if you want a little bomb shelter in your garden, the whole atomic [00:28:00] war and the fear of its and stuff. And that company, of course, had not too much to do at the moment.

So when we built this, Project for a fashion designer, we thought it should be cloth. And then I found this product and I called in England and I was like, Hey, we're doing this thing. What do you think? Do you wanna sponsor it? And they're like, absolutely architects. And you could see them think, oh good goodie new clients.

And so they were super sweet. But what is the beauty of it? It's half inch. Cloth that is impregnated with concrete, you drape it over. We build a structure from rebar. You drape it over, you spray it with water, and within half an hour it's structurally half inch concrete. So it's an amazing thing.

So this book is really a manual on how to innovate Architecture with unexpected materials or different structures or developing new systems with manufacturers, which is more or less how we have. Run our practice sometimes out of [00:29:00] frustration because we couldn't find an interesting system to work with.

And then we just developed one with a manufacturer. Sometimes in a, the funny story is we developed a panel with a company called Panel Light, which was recycled aluminum honeycomb with two layers of port fiber glass. And then Ram used it all over i t in Chicago. So I was like I should've gotten a patent on that thing.

But yeah. Damn. Business. We need a business manager in this office. But yeah, so it's very interesting and I don't mind it actually. I like the fact, yeah, I think it's a compliment, but it's it's nice to develop new materials and to come up with things that are more organic looking or.

Just simply more organic. So yeah, this manual also designed by W S D A in here in New York. And the funny thing is, of course, that it has, they put holes in it because they were inspired by the car manuals of the fifties, the tractor and car manuals of the fifties. You used to stick them in the binder.[00:30:00]

So the idea is you can rip this book apart and stick it in a binder theoretically.

Stephen Drew: I love it. It looks beautiful now. What I was gonna say is, and I'm gonna bring up the website one time more, but I think maybe it's because it's such a beautiful day.

Winka Dubbeldam: I think something went wrong in the website. Oh, if we are still on the screen. I was trying to share the screen. Maybe it's not so wise, but while Steven is having a moment being frozen, I think we can maybe just look at the Inscape thing in the book, because that is also. How that works as it is this project, as you can see it here. So that is actually the project that Is the project that inspired the whole stadium.

I'll try and find another one for you. Over 3D fun is the prototype that we 3D printed in [00:31:00] a car manufacturer business, which is this guy, it's very manual, this presentation. So this whole thing is robotically printed in a by a car manufacturer in la and we did that because the client wasn't very, clients are not necessarily architects.

It's not that easy for them to understand. And then eventually, that looks like this in the space. A big, huge volume in the space and very exciting to have. Right here in Manhattan, in Chelsea, it was essentially a startup. So we also designed their retail and Other things. So it's a, it's an interesting exercise in how to start a business, how to help the client market it.

Interesting was that at some point they realized that the branding and the marketing really didn't have to be designed, but that the space itself became the marketing and became the branding, which was a sweet compliment to Architecture, I think. And of course it was completely pre replicated.

So you can see that [00:32:00] here. One of the most high tech spaces we've built, which looks the most minimal, but it had a rated so the air comes in filtered with aromatherapy. There's micro speakers for sound, so the sound sounds omni universal. I have just kept going

Stephen Drew: Win Winka. You remember I said the worst case scenarios that would

Winka Dubbeldam: now. Yeah, we have explained, we've explained Inscape in the meantime.

Stephen Drew: someone has pulled out the internet or something. I was running around to my partner. I was like, darling, you're not downloading anything, are you? And I was about to log on my phone, so well done. You had the baptism by

Winka Dubbeldam: went through the, we went through the whole Inscape project. In the meantime, I all have to show you, actually, look, this was robotically milled in the car factory,

Stephen Drew: Oh, it

Winka Dubbeldam: As a prototype. Yeah. Yeah. Really fun. So we did the manual version cuz I didn't know how to share on your system,

Stephen Drew: Oh,

Winka Dubbeldam: but I did a man manual version and walked through Inscape

Stephen Drew: You've had the baptism by fire, and so while you've done an amazing [00:33:00] stadium, you've done all this cool stuff. You did parametric design before it happened. You're also the first ever person to survive the dra, the crash on the podcast. So well done for. Reality kicking mo My lights are going off now and all this stuff, isn't it?

I think I would say before I have a second heart attack, what I was gonna say is, and unless there's anything that we haven't covered or anything, normally what I do is I like to throw it back where you can ask me a question. Or two. And that could be because I'm in London, it could be in the Architecture scene, but I've got as much time as you.

Do you have any questions for me?

Winka Dubbeldam: Yeah I really love that you asked me the this question. So I'm gonna ask you this question. Where do you feel Architecture is going to?

Stephen Drew: I've gotta be honest. I, before I went even into Architecture, I was always. Fascinated by video game design, web design. I've developed a lot of the Architecture Social website myself. I'd never do it again because it's one of those things that you do [00:34:00] and you love it, but you also at the same time think, my goodness, that was a world of pain.

But I think that at the moment, AI as a tool is really interesting, and so I've actually plugged it into my business in different ways. It's still a tool, which is why I was really happy that you mentioned it, and I really believe in experimentation. However, I do think that where it's amazing is there's an opportunity to remove the mundane, to focus on the interesting, because this stuff that Architectural professionals or business owners just have to do.

I have to get my invoices out, I have to speak to someone on the phone. However, that in, in certain things like search engine optimization, it just takes away that burden because you can get, you can optimize things quickly. So I'm interested in how artificial intelligence can actually. Enable architects to do Architecture, if that makes sense.

So I see it rather than detracting. So I find that really [00:35:00] exciting. But also, one other thing in the UK I would say and so maybe going more into the academic part of it, is that there's an emergence in the UK of. Architectural apprentice schemes. So different routes into Architecture because I was lucky enough that I had some help for my parents, but I was working as well and what everyone's different walk of life and it would be a shame if they weren't in our Architecture, if they had a passion for it, but couldn't do it.

So I'm really excited to see different forms of education in the uk. Maybe a quick one back. Is it in the us Are you finding that? Conversations are opening up around that point as well.

Winka Dubbeldam: Yeah, the US has a interesting system because our semesters are so short that the stu, every student works four months in the summer, which actually is a great way because then every year you come back, you've worked a little bit in a practice. So the practice and that the studying are very [00:36:00] interwoven.

And of course often they come to work for us. Faculty, but also in other offices. And we also arrange it for them. So we get really interesting practices to take our students. Sometimes they go for weeks, sometimes four months. It's like an interesting, and I think there is nothing as good as learning Architecture as just doing it, I think that's definitely, but I like what your answer was because I also think that as much as I think sustainability is really important, and I like. Playing with it. I like innovating in it and I like trying the far future stuff, but I also think that sustainability has broaden the bad, ugly side to the forefront.

And I think beauty and Architecture is really, even if it's a non, like you've seen my work, it's not very standard beauty, right? It's I like to think of buildings having character and identity, but not. I don't like styles, I don't like standard [00:37:00] aesthetics. But I, the idea that a building has character and identity and definitely that is a great thing to investigate in i, in AI and helps to loosen up those ideas.

It was in the old days we used to experiment more in the computer and I remember even. When we started becoming digital, it was like, oh, it's going to erase old beauty Architecture. I think it just brought it back in a, brought the level of complexity we can now handle. Because, your 3D model is also the BIM model is also the structural engineer's model is whatever.

No, it's goes everywhere. That is so exciting. I love that.

Stephen Drew: I agree. And I'd say the last thing before we wind down is that I think that there's over the years where I've seen so much resistance to tech, but actually if you can embrace it, I do think that it is the enabler, for example, I remember. It was CADs. Oh, we need to keep doing a little bit of hand drawing.

Who's saying that once we're replacing the other and then the resistance in the UK to going to [00:38:00] BIM, it was huge. Just absolutely, and I understand it's not perfect and I understand it, there's, it's a whole separate conversation. However, actually then I started hearing more conversations after the initial resistance being like, oh, actually.

It's a bit of a pain in the, what to set up, but now it's starting to make sense and the collaboration. So I think we're gonna go through this with AI and all this stuff initially, where there's gonna be a lot of that resistance and then hopefully people will find it's really useful.

I tell you one one last thing on it, it makes me laugh, is that Photoshop, all AI generated, The amount of times when I was an Architectural graduate in an office, I would spend Photoshopping it all and now Winky, you don't even need to do it. You can just program it out. So you'll have new stuff for the initial graduate

Winka Dubbeldam: you can just say, you can just say the words and it happens.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, remove ai, remove that awful, area and imposes and it does it, but,

Winka Dubbeldam: [00:39:00] Remove background. Boom.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, but the thing is you need you there to go that's not realistic and that's not real. So it's a bit of

Winka Dubbeldam: Yeah, no, it's totally true because we also did a lot of studies with animations. For example, we like to think that Architecture has behavior, right? So we would study that in Maya, which is originally a film software. And we did that for years and had all kinds of growth models that pl, that buildings could grow according to an L system.

And, people were like, you're not designing. I said, yeah I'm telling it how to grow. I stop it where I wanted to stop. I test whether I like it or not. I run eight models, maybe one of them is right. I'm still designing. I'm just letting things be organized according to another logic. And I like that.

So yeah, I'm deep in all of that.

Stephen Drew: Very cool. My goodness I don't want to keep you too long because I know I, I'm excited to see the next stuff and while I'm gonna keep an eye on things, and I'll bring up your website one more time, so [00:40:00] people, where can people get in touch with you, Winka? Maybe that's the best thing to

Winka Dubbeldam: Very easy. You go on that website, our emails are right there,

Stephen Drew: Brilliant. Reach out and you can

Winka Dubbeldam: phone number, address everything. We're very non secretive.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, don't be shy. Reach out, isn't it? So well on that note, I really appreciate you being here. I really appreciate showing the work your patience, and I appreciate your steady internet connection because mine wasn't, but you know what? The show goes on and I'm so glad that we had This conversation.

So Winka do if you can stay in the stage. One second while I talk us out. And thank you and the audience for joining us as well. I've had a really good time. Now. I've got some cool stuff that I will be lining up shortly, so keep an eye on the cool stuff, but I'll let you off. If you look at Winkers website and all the cool stuff there, that's fine too.

I'm gonna end the livestream now. Thank you so much. And Winker, stay on the stage. Take care everyone. Bye-bye now. Take care. Bye-bye.[00:41:00]