There are currently one billion people

with substandard housing.

Buildings currently utilize and require

energy more than any other industry.

Buildings create more carbon than any other industry.

And as we look to population projections,

we're gonna have to build more buildings in the next

30 years than we have in the past 3,000.

And at the same time those buildings are gonna have to

use so much less energy and create so much less carbons.

As an architect it's kind of exciting 'cause it means

that if buildings are our biggest problem as we look

to the future, then it means that

buildings can be our biggest solution.

So I'm gonna talk a little bit about my second chapter,

which was doing prefab green homes.

It was my humble attempt at thinking about some of these

problems and how to make sustainable,

healthy homes accessible to more people,

and utilizing modular technology is a way to do that.

This is a home that we built with Wired Magazine.

We built this home as seven modules in a factory

and through software and through the factory we were able

to achieve 50 to 75% less waste, depending on the material.

We then set the seven modules to the site,

we started setting them at about 7:30 in the morning

and by 4:30 that same day I was walking through

the house doing the check with the builder,

which was pretty exciting.

Then we spent the next two months doing

what we call the button up work.

So, in total it took four months to build the house

and if you were gonna do that with traditional

construction it would take you 14 months.

We actually embedded software into the home itself

as a way to allow us to monitor the production

and consumption of energy and water.

And what's great is there are a lot of architects

and a lot of companies doing this work now,

which is wonderful, but it's not enough.

It's still a small niche, there's still a big world.

We have to think bigger.

We need improvement really quickly.

This industry is still overall so inefficient, so this chart

shows us that every other industry has been using software

as a way to help with productivity except for construction.

And there are a number of reasons for this,

some of which is a lot of designers, architects, engineers,

we don't share information.

So, we're almost kinda starting from scratch every time.

So, it's hard to really innovate other than

in incremental steps.

We also have good software systems that we can use

but much of it is incompatible with one another.

And they're still time consuming, so we don't have timely

data that we really need for making good decisions.

We don't have instant information on costs, or energy,

or how the building will perform.

So, what is the solution for making buildings better,

more accessible, more affordable?

I have been fortunate enough to be a part of

a team of software engineers.

We started with this project a couple of years ago

at Google X and spun out our company called Flux.

The team has been looking at this industry.

So, I'm gonna show us just a little bit of a fully

functioning software that we've been developing.

We've been in stealth mode, so this is kind of

exciting to be sharing a little peek at this,

of what's possible when you connect these items.

This allows you to design a building in seconds,

at the speed of thought.

Where as you're designing it you have the data that

you really need for making good decisions.

As you make changes you can see

what the cost implications will be, what the energy

implications will be.

It automatically gives you best practice detailing

and structural systems.

You can understand when you do that,

what the implications are for functionality,

occupant experience, initial costs,

but also more importantly life cycle cost of the building.

Right now, this will take a team of people

weeks, months to do what the software

will allow you to do in seconds.

So, this gives the teams more time for innovation

and actually being able to improve as we go along.

By democratizing knowledge and tools

in the building and construction space,

this allows architects, engineers,

and building owners to share their

work like software engineers do.

It allows them to collectively solve problems

and improve the process every single time.

Innovation goes viral.

So, that way things like adaptive solar facades

aren't just developed on one building,

they're used on many, and it improves with each one.

And ideas like Gensler's breathing skin can actually become

affordable for multi-family housing in developing countries.

And things like HOK's algae living facade can be

something that is commonplace, and not the exception.

So, by relearning from the latest logic of software

and applying it to how we design and construct buildings

we can design our buildings in cities

where we, and the planet, can thrive.

Thank you.

(audience applause)

(light piano notes)