DCC Winter Event – Talk to the Brain

The room was packed – with people as well as with ideas, knowledge and information. In short – it was a blast and I can’t wait to see the next one!

If you want to stay for the long version of my improvised review of the event that took place at the office of AKT on the night of 4-Feb 2016, let me first explain what DCC is and why it is so important for humanity.

DCC stands for “Design Computing Community” and that’s pretty much what it is – a hub where the geeky part of the AEC industry meets. A social place, a forum for computationally imbued ideas. The initiative is based in London and this was their third event  (at least as far as I know).

The talks are usually hosted in the office space of a friendly architectural or engineering practice and give the lucky attendee the chance to hear between four and five highly-entertaining, high-quality computational talks with presenters coming from every niche of our industry – Gregory Epps and Robots? – good!  Atelier One and hanging giant human figures? – good!

Last night was no different – there were four talks split among six speakers and in less than three hours we were introduced to a good mix of design, research, fabrication, architecture, application, mathematics, processes, custom tools and much, much more. It is difficult to describe every single discourse in detail as they all packed quite a substantial mental punch – I can say that I found interest in all of them and they kept me highly engaged during the whole affair. And although I hold the talk which Michael Hudson gave on the first Summer Event as a personal favorite, I must admit that an interesting trend is starting to emerge – I find myself drawn to the more technical talks of those specialists who work in the later stages of the design process. Both AKT’s Uli Horner from the second edition and Newtecnic’s Howard Tee yesterday gave incredibly in-depth, sophisticated, no-bs, mesmerizing lectures in fabrication, manufacturing, and all the post-project disciplines which we, as architects, tend to sometimes neglect.

The talks are getting the right amount of love from the community and last night was a good showcase in that regard – the big conference room packed with people was full of vibrant, healthy chatter during the breaks; this trend shows that the community is recognizing the forum as a much-needed place, turning DCC into a source of specialized knowledge that is sometimes hard to come by.

My personal opinion – I love this event! It infuses me with that tribal feeling of belonging, of being part of something meaningful and greater than myself. And, to be honest, after the informational outpour from last night, it might have increased my brain size a little.

Keep up the great work guys! See you in three months.

 

P.S You can find more information about the Design Computing Community on their web page or follow them on Twitter @dcctalks.

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