Andy Watts

Andy Watts

Director of Design Technology
Grimshaw
Bio

Andy is the Director of Design Technology at Grimshaw and leads the practice’s global Design Technology team, overseeing digital disciplines such as computational design, BIM, extended reality, urban computation, applications development and environmental performance.

As a qualified architect with a background in computational design, Andy has an interest in problem-solving, regardless of scale or platform. From low-key computational tinkering to digital transformation on a practice-scale, his passion lies in making the lives of architects and designers easier through the use of technology.

Andy is a proponent of open and equitable access to technology. Within Grimshaw he has sought to break down the silos between technologies, allowing for the cross-pollination of expertise to be available to any project within the practice. In the wider industry, Andy has continued to drive for an open approach to technology, through engagement in industry-wide research consortia such as the Construction Innovation Hub, participation in public events, and playing a role in groups driving for industry change such as the Open Letter Group and Future AEC Software Specification.

Andy is also actively involved in academia, has taught at the Architectural Association and University of Westminster, and has also lectured and critiqued at the Pratt Institute, Melbourne University, Dundee University, RCA, UCL and others.

NXT DEV Talk

Future AEC Software Specification
At NXT DEV 2023, Aaron Perry of AHMM Architects, talking on behalf of a collective of medium-to-large AEC firms, gave a masterful presentation on the ‘Future Design Software Specification’. The specification document lays out what the AEC industry wants from its future design tools, covering everything from data framework, context and scale, responsible design, and modular construction, to user experience, modelling capabilities, automation, intelligence, deliverables and more. This year, Andy Watts, director of design technology at Grimshaw, will give an update on the specification and then hand over to Allister Lewis, ADDD, to talk about benchmarking software against the specification.

Panel discussion: Pricing, Licensing and Business models: what AEC firms want
In this world nothing is said to be certain, except death and taxes. One might suggest that ‘changing software business models and increasing prices’ should be added to that list. With rapid metastases in licensing and pricing models, customers seem to be at the receiving end of this. Design IT Directors have to cope with rapidly evolving their tech stacks against a backdrop of subscription fees and license model changes. It’s not just one firm, but all firms that are experimenting with extracting the most from their user bases. What do Design IT Directors think of current business models? What licensing models work and don’t work? Pricing has gone from pay once, perpetual, to some software firms wanting a % of the project fee. We have a panel of customers to give us their frank opinions.
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