8:00 am |

9:00 am |

9:00 am -10:20 am |

In Person Registration

Live Stream Begins | Welcome & Introduction

Morning Presentations

9:10 am |

Pininfarina

Nicholas Desbiens / Innovation Lead

Nicholas Desbiens, AIA, LEED AP, is an architect and innovation leader with over two decades of experience at the intersection of design, technology, and fabrication. As Innovation Lead at Pininfarina USA, he advances digital design methodologies across architecture, interiors, industrial, and automotive design. With expertise in computational design and data-driven workflows, Nicholas bridges the gap between design and construction at the project and organizational level. He is also an active advocate for meaningful and necessary change in architectural practice and culture through his ongoing work at AIA New York.

Amir Ashtiani / Lead Architect

Amir Ashtiani is an accomplished architect and computational designer based in New York City, with over a decade of experience in the field. He specializes in leveraging advanced design technologies and computational methods to create innovative and futuristic architectural solutions. His expertise in AI-driven visualization allows him to push the boundaries of traditional architecture and design, focusing on how AI can be integrated as a medium rather than just a tool.
For the past five years, Amir has been deeply engaged in exploring how AI will shape the future of design and how designers should interact with it to foster experimentation and innovation. He is committed to utilizing technology in ways that challenge the norms, driving design into new, experimental realms.
Throughout his career, Amir has worked on a wide range of projects, collaborating with renowned firms such as Woods Bagot and Pininfarina, where he currently serves as a Lead Designer. His work extends beyond traditional architectural practice, as he continuously experiments and researches toward the understanding of how computational design, AI, and human creativity can converge to redefine the built environment and open new possibilities for future urban landscapes.

9:35 am |

nTop

Justin Hattendorf / Director of Product Design

Justin Hattendorf is a Product Designer who creates 3D software for Designers and Engineers. He is the Director of Product Design at nTop, where he leads a diverse, interdisciplinary team of designers and developers who are crafting an industry-leading computational design platform for high-performance engineering applications.

Justin's work aims to humanize complex processes by combining advanced digital concepts with intuitive, tactile interactions, and aims to cultivate enjoyable, memorable user experiences. He has a background in architecture, 3D modeling & graphics, generative art, and industrial design. Justin also co-leads JAW Studio, a boutique design studio in Brooklyn, NY, specializing in 3D fashion hardware and accessories, blending emerging technology with traditional handcraft."

10:00 am |

SOFTlab

Michael Szivos / Director & Founder

Michael is the founder and director of SOFTlab, a New York City based design studio. SOFTlab combines a research-based design practice with an interest in how technology, craft, and materials come together in ways that explore the boundaries between art, architecture, interactive design, other disciplines, and the public In addition to running SOFTlab, Michael is a senior critic at the Yale School of Architecture where he teaches graduate design studios and seminars.

Keynote 10:25 am |

Zaha Hadid Architects

Shajay Bhooshan / Associate Director & Head of Computation & Design (ZHACODE)

As an expert in computation, Shajay also has specialised knowledge in programming, mathematics – especially geometry and optimisation methods, and computer-controlled industrial machines including industrial robotics. Shajay is co-founder of CODE, ZHA’s computational design research group. CODE has made key contributions to computational platforms, talent development and architectural design at ZHA, especially related to architectural application and articulation of shell structures.

10:50 am |

11:10 am |

Morning Presenters Roundtable

Coffee Break

11:30 am |

Roundtable | Shifting the AEC Sandbox

Moderator | To Be Announced

Dimitrie Stefanescu / Founder & CEO

Speckle

Founder of Speckle, where we're building up an open-source ecosystem for the digital transformation of the AEC industry. Architect & programmer. Want to join us working on OSS? Drop me a DM.

Previously at Arup, Marie Curie Fellow at UCL, and Architect at Bogdan & Van Broeck. Alumni of the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture (MSc), PhD in digital design communication from UCL/The Bartlett.

Peter Madlener / CEO & Co-Founder of VIKTOR

Viktor

Peter Madlener is the Co-Founder and CEO of VIKTOR, a web application development platform designed for engineers. VIKTOR empowers engineers to automate repetitive tasks, optimize workflows, and enhance collaboration across teams.

With a rich background in engineering and construction, including working as a welder at the age of 17 before returning to university, Peter brings a pragmatic perspective to advancing the engineering industry. He believes that while technology is important, true innovation is driven by people, their processes, and how technology is integrated into their work.

Mathias Hobinger / Co-founder & CEO at ShapeDiver

Shapediver

Co-founder and CEO of ShapeDiver, unleashing the power of parametric modeling into the web.

Andrew Heumann / Software Developer

Hypar

Andrew is an architectural designer and software developer with a passion for building the next generation of software tools for designers. Before joining Hypar he was a senior researcher at WeWork where he focused on integrating automation and AI into design and delivery processes. He is the author of several popular Grasshopper plug-ins including Human, Human UI, Metahopper, and JSwan.

12:30 pm |

1:30 pm - 4:30 pm |

Lunch Break

Afternoon Presentations

1:35 pm |

Thornton Tomasetti | CORE studio

Alexandra Pollock / Senior Director of CORE Studio

Alexandra is Thornton Tomasetti’s Senior Director of CORE Studio. A registered Architect and technologist with 20 years of experience in the AEC industry, Alexandra has contributed to a diverse range of projects, from small-scale renovations to super-tall towers, while providing strategic leadership for existing and emerging technologies. She is currently serving on the Virginia Tech School of Architecture Advisory Board, is a member of the Built Environment Futures Council, and is on the leadership committee for the national AIA TAP (Technology in Architecture Practice) knowledge community.

2:00 pm |

Chaos

Petr Mitev / Vice President, Solutions for Designers

I thrive on diverse problems and solving them through an agile and experimental application of technology. I’m currently working with Chaos as the Vice President of Solutions for Designers to create software products and technologies that empower and improve the design and delivery of the built environment. Although my education was in traditional design & Architecture, my work with the Research Group at KieranTimberlake and my experience as the Head of Application Development and Design Computation at NBBJ allowed me to merge my background in formal design with my passion for empowering technology. My main focus now is leveraging my product experience and knowledge of the AECO industry to create solutions that effectively improve the environment around us and answer the most pressing questions we face today as builders of tomorrow.

2:25 pm |

Walter P. Moore

Dan Reynolds | AI Leader

Dan Reynolds is the AI Leader at Walter P Moore and a structural engineer with expertise in specialty structures. After delivering complex and high-profile projects, Dan now leads a team of structural engineers and AI developers who are reinventing the project delivery process from the ground up. Committed to a better-built world, their mission is to support project teams with innovative solutions, real-time optioneering, and data-driven insights at scale through custom software applications and APIs.

2:50 pm |

Martin Bros. Construction

Andrew Kragness / Director of Computational Design

Andrew is an innovative leader dedicated to redefining the future of project execution within the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. He is a recognized façade and constructability expert whose experience with mass customization and computational design has resulted in the execution of some of the most geometrically complex projects in North America. By implementing emerging technologies and methodologies, Andrew is transforming traditional AEC practices and helping the industry fully embrace novel and symmetrical exchanges between the digital and physical worlds.

Andrew leverages his multifaceted background spanning film, robotics, automation, design, architecture, engineering, and construction to create cross-functional and high-functioning teams. He advises companies on their digital construction journey to expand and evolve their capabilities while maintaining core competencies and competitive advantages.

3:15 pm |

3:40 pm |

Afternoon Presenters Roundtable

Coffee Break

4:00 pm |

Roundtable | Grasshopper Plugin Pioneers

Moderator To Be Announced

Mostapha Sadeghipour Roudsari / Co-Founder @ Ladybug Tools

Ladybug

Mostapha is a co-founder of Ladybug Tools LLC. He is currently focused on the development of Pollination.

Nathan Miller / CEO @ Proving Ground

LunchBox, COnduit

Nathan Miller is the founder of Proving Ground - a digital transformation agency. Nate specializes in collaborating with designers and builders to implement digital strategies for reducing waste, enhancing creativity, and making better decisions about the built environment. Nate and his team have developed popular Rhino plugins, including LunchBox, Tracer, Semantic, and Conveyor. These tools give designers the opportunity to implement sophisticated workflows for geometry, data, and machine learning within popular platforms including Rhino, Revit, and Power BI.

Andrew Heumann / Software Developer @ HYPAR

Human Tools, Meta Hopper, Human UI

Andrew is an architectural designer and software developer with a passion for building the next generation of software tools for designers. Before joining Hypar he was a senior researcher at WeWork where he focused on integrating automation and AI into design and delivery processes. He is the author of several popular Grasshopper plug-ins including Human, Human UI, Metahopper, and JSwan.

To Be Announced

—-

5:00 pm |

AECtech Closing Statements

ROBERT OTANI / CTO

Thornton Tomasetti | CORE studio

Robert K. Otani, PE LEED AP is Chief Technology Officer at Thornton-Tomasetti, Inc., a 1700+ person multidisciplinary engineering and consulting firm, and founded the CORE studio, an applications development, advanced computational modeling, and R&D group at his firm. He has extensive structural design and project management experience involving commercial, infrastructure, institutional, cultural and residential structures on projects totaling over $2 billion USD of construction. His professional and academic interests focus on informed architecture relating to optimized structural typologies, high performance structures, and structural sustainability. He has served as President of the Structural Engineers Association of New York in 2007 and has been an Adjunct Professor at Pratt Institute School of Architecture and Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.

6:00 - 8:00 pm |

AECtech Happy Hour