Today over 3 billion people live in urban areas, composing 50% of the world population. By 2050, it is estimated that the world population will grow to between 9 and 11 billion people, and over 70% will be living in urban areas. This means within 35 years, we will need to house an additional 3 billion people within cities by the most conservative estimates. Even if we could build large apartment complexes that house 500 people each, we would need to construct 500 buildings each day every day for the next 35 years to meet that demand.
How will the architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) industry meet the demand for affordable and sustainable buildings in this rapidly urbanizing world? At Flux, we believe technology is the answer. Based out of San Francisco, Flux develops cloud-based collaboration tools that exchange data between existing design environments, allowing for automated and parametric workflows that extend across platforms. Our mission is to spread design knowledge and improve the accessibility of design tools, in order to help the AEC industry design buildings smarter, faster, and more sustainably.
In this competition, we ask students designing in Grasshopper, Dynamo, and Excel to think about the role technology solutions can play in accelerating the building design process and increasing the innovation capacity of design teams. Each registered team will submit a short video explaining your project, along with relevant design files. Submissions will be judged based on creativity, simplicity, and transferability; prizes will be awarded for a variety of submission categories as detailed in the brief.
