With today's reveal of 7 planets that could support earth-like life, I thought it fitting to share this. Our team in Toronto is moving to a new office on MaRS. Though the name started as Medical and Related Sciences, the facility now focuses on information and communications technology, engineering, and social innovation.
Located in the heart of Canada’s largest and the world’s most diverse city, the MaRS location brings together educators, researchers, social scientists, entrepreneurs, and business experts under one roof. Founded by civic leaders, MaRS has a mission that is equal parts public and private — an entrepreneurial venture designed to bridge the gap between what people need and what governments can provide. [MaRS]
The team was able to configure its future (later this year) space using generative design. Using generative design allowed the team to juggle tons of variables and individual employee preferences with regard to:
- Adjacency - "I need to sit by that guy because we work together often."
- Work style - "I like only a little bit of light and want my office to be relatively quiet."
- Buzz - "I like to see people come and go, so I can be where the action's at."
- Productivity - "I want to avoid any distractions at my desk."
- Daylight - "Wouldn't it be great if we could maximize the amount of natural light so we can reduce our carbon footprint?"
- Views to the outside - "Let's maximize exterior views from desks and circulation paths."
So although generative is often envisioned as a technology that produces an optimal design given a set of requirements, it's actually a multi-variable problem-solver that can be applied to a variety of complicated dilemmas or predicaments. Generative design is actually the process of defining high-level goals and constraints, and then using the power of computation to automatically explore a wide design space and identify the best design options.
Space exploration is alive in the lab.