Lynn Osmond, CEO of CAF, introduces the event’s speakers.

BIG Ideas, BY THE NUMBERS

After 100+ visitors filled our offices, networked with sponsors over cocktails and hors d’ouvres, and sampled gadgets like IrisVR visualizations and the Oculus Rift, the crowd moved upstairs to hear our featured speakers, led by JOHN TOLVA, the City of Chicago’s first-ever chief technology officer and now president of locally based PositivEnergy Practice. Here’s a sample of what our expert quartet had to share with our audience about the modern explosion of constantly updated data now available:

TOLVA: The opportunity for our industry is to take advantage of all this information today… There’s a difference between ‘urban’ and ‘civic’, and the AEC community can do a lot to improve our civic environment… The desirability of observability is really at the heart of the idea of a city.

CHARLIE CATLETT, Director, Urban Center for Computation and Data, a joint initiative of the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory: In the next 20 years, more buildings will be built on the planet than currently exist… ENVIRONMENT – INFRASTRUCTURE – PEOPLE : We have to look at all three factors when we talk about cities…When we look at cities today, we actually don’t have enough information available for us to monitor everything accurately. We need both spatial and temporal sensors… We have built a dozen boxes that we will deploy around the city in next few weeks to monitor air quality and other data, updated every 30 seconds. The information they gather is free and will be ‘open sourced’, but it will NOT be used for surveillance… (For an incredible look at some amazing numbers, go to: http://plenar.io, http://arrayofthings.github.io, or http://data.cityofchicago.org);

EURO BEINAT, Vice President, Platform Technologies at Zebra Technologies: Designing for the ‘Internet of Things’ will involve avatars and analytics that are real-time, descriptive and predictive… and require storage that is secure… Avatars for such things as industrial label printers… vending machines (with updated inventories)… bicycles… wine racks, for remote temperature control… iPhones… automobile engines, emissions, etc… And the information can be shared, updated in real-time… For instance, car speeds can even be shared with insurance companies to help lower premiums;

PETRA STIENINGER, Director, Smart City Projects at C.C. Johnson & Malhotra, P.C.: In 1894, the Times of London predicted that in 50 years, cities would be buried under nine feet of horse manure! In 1898, New York City hosted the first international urban planning conference… Sustainability is about changing behaviors. The problem is not all these emissions. It is the behaviors behind them… Data is the new planning tool. What we really need now are new tools and technologies to gather this data to make this information useful.

CAF and BuiltWorlds also expressed their special thanks to the event sponsors: The Graham Foundation, Burnham Nationwide, Table XI, SoCore Energy, Ozinga, Master Graphics, the digit group, 1130 Community, EngageCIVIL, Atco, and Hard Hat Hub.

About the Meet-Up

Reflecting on last week’s successful joint program here, the Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) and BuiltWorlds could hardly have been more pleased with the SRO turnout and content-rich environment created by ‘The BIG Idea: Experience Data’.

“This was our best event yet and we are thrilled to have been able to propel this conversation forward among technologists, architects, contractors, developers and researchers,” said Matt Abeles, managing director of BuiltWorlds, the online industry forum which sees itself as an instigator of innovation and a promoter of best practices and collaborative problem-solving. “We are so grateful to CAF for agreeing to bring this fascinating program to our space, and we are excited to know that we will be working with them again in 2015 on more upcoming projects,” he added.

For its part, CAF was equally enthused.

“Thank you for such a marvelous event!” tweeted CAF President & CEO Lynn Osmond last week. “We can’t wait to share all your great photos!”

Well, the wait is over. Check out the event gallery below or click here.

Ian Manger of BuiltWorlds shows Graham Grady of Shefsky & Froelich the IrisVR Oculus Rift Demo.

Michael Wood of CAF & Sara Bopp of Atelier Lapachi

Samantha Flavin of World Business Chicago and Oren Schumaker of Gensler

From left to right: Katherine Stalker of CAF, Karl Sorensen of BuiltWorlds and Kelly Floyd of CAF

From left, MP Boughner of Boughner Associates chats with Matt Gray, while John Tolva of Positive Energy talks to Lynn Osmond of CAF.

Josh Maglasang of Urban GIS takes Google Cardboard for a test drive.

Kelsey Taylor of EngageCivil

Rob McManamy of BuiltWorlds, Charlie Catlett of the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, and Hope Alexander of Walbridge

From left, Dr. Theo Tryfonas from the University of Bristol chats with Hope Alexander of Walbridge, Rob McManamy of BuiltWorlds, and Charlie Catlett, of Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago.

Rob McManamy, center, talks about ‘Smart Cities’ issues in the U.K. with Dr. Theo Tryfonas (left) of the University of Bristol, and Peter Cooper, from the London office of Arup.