San Francisco 25th March – 1st April 2009

The SmartGeometry Group is pleased to announce that the annual SG event will take place in San Francisco 25th March – 1st April 2009. The event will be the key event in the year for discussing, learning and networking about the emerging practice of digital parametrics within the AEC community.

The event will come in five parts, a GenerativeComponents pre-training session (25th-26th March), a Workshop (27th-30th March), a public Alumni Summit (31st March) and a public Conference and Reception (1st April). These events follow the highly successful previous SG events, Munich 2008, New York 2007, London 2006 and multiple preceding events. Venue details will be posted on this web site as soon as they are available.

The Workshop, applications for which will open on-line on smartgeometry.org on 1st December 2008 and close on 19th January 2009, provides a unique opportunity to work with the most established experts in the world on digital parametric design. The 22 tutors come from world-renowned firms and leading Academic Institutions in this emerging cutting-edge technology. Applicants will be notified of results on 30th January 2009.

The Workshop number of attendees will be limited to 105. The application process will be on-line on this site. The primary goal in identifying attendees is their submission of interesting and challenging design ideas in architecture and engineering. In previous years the Workshop has been hugely oversubscribed and potential attendees are encouraged to apply as early as possible. Scholarships for Student applicants will be available as well as reduced fees for young professionals.

In these uncertain times there is only one certainty: skills matter. Knowledge of an emerging niche market, such as digital parametrics, is vital not only for individuals but practices as well. Only cutting-edge skills and technology will ensure survival; this is the event where you can acquire and meet those who already practice it.

The Workshop will be using one consistent parametric platform, GenerativeComponents (GC) from Bentley Systems. Bentley as the principal sponsor of the event will make the software available to all workshop attendees. Attendees and applicants will be encouraged to familiarize themselves with the software either by direct use or by attending one of numerous tutorial sessions (generally during January 2009) which will be available world-wide at various Institutions, details will be announced on this web site. There will also be a pre-training 2 day session in San Francisco immediately preceding the workshop.

The most successful of the Workshop attendees will have their work shown at the SG 2009 Conference and will also have an opportunity to attend a Master Class where top architects, engineers and educators will give in-depth critique of the work.

The Alumni Summit is designed for practices to show-case projects designed using GC in whole or in part. With GC as a commercial product an ever-increasing cutting-edge projects use the product and this day is designed to exchange ideas between practice, research and academia.

The Alumni Summit presentations will be selected from on-line proposals on this site and applications to present must be received by 17th January, and applicants will be notified on or just after 3rd February 2009.

The Public Conference on the 1st April highlights the design issues surrounding this new technology.  Attending the Conference also gives you access to the Reception as well as the Alumni Summit. New architectural form is not just a case of smooth curvature, it is an issue of choices within an infinite design space. How do we go about making architectural and system choices within the new paradigm of digital parametrics? SG will invite a wide variety of well-known speakers and experts from adjoining fields to discuss this fundamental issue.

The complete event will gather together the most important players in the industry and is an essential event for networking with practice, research and academia.

We expect to see you there.

Lars Hesselgren KPF - SG Director
Hugh Whitehead Foster+Partners - SG Director
J Parrish ArupSport - SG Director
Shane Burger Grimshaw - SG Tutorial Committee
Jeroen Coenders Arup - SG Tutorial Committee
Axel Killian Delft University - SG Tutorial Committee