There is a increasing trend for home builders and owners to create state of the art design centers for their clients and potential buyers to better evaluate the myriad of choices that comes with buying a new home, condo or office environment. Outside of the traditional “show home” these are multileveled visual and virtual buildings highlighting different layouts and configurations as well as the all-important upgrades. Often the elevation design, footprint, even basic layout is set but the final design touches – this fireplace, these cabinets, that set of window treatments – are time consuming and difficult choices for most home owners.

Obviously there is a direct link between the options available in show homes and what is eventually purchased by the home owner. So for home builders to shell out $500,000 to even a million dollars in these design center style showrooms, is a drop in the ocean. Even still, is there a better way?

The goal as always is to present buyers with the best representation of choice, the ability to see all the potential benefits and drawbacks of all the options within their budget. Getting your hands on the various sinks and facets is nice, but does that work with the paint they’ve chosen, or the carpet or the five different cabinet choices on the short list?

These design show room centers have already shown themselves useful and quite frankly, profitable.  But what if you could open up all the choices available? The best equipped show room has only a handful of options they can show, they will always be limited by space and cost.  Virtual show rooms on the other can could be loaded with every design choice. Want to see those 4 hardwood choices with these 6 paint colors, no problem. Want to see those 4 hardwoods against 60 paint choices, 600? Well you can’t do that in the physical showroom, so why not the Virtual showroom?

With the rapid rendering and inclusive ability of the VIMtrek software to get all the participants walking around in the same space, you could add the 600 paint colors, even 6000 or more if anyone really wanted to review that many. The point is that the goal is to better communicate and include the buyer into the design process, technology – easy to use and accessible technology – will get us all there faster than the fanciest showroom.

The pedagogy of learning has been shifting for some time now to promote active engagement and collaboration in the classroom, rather than teachers ‘broadcasting’ information to students. The idea is that interaction and engagement improves the way students retain and interpret information. Learning becomes an active process of collaboration between students and with the teacher.

Recent university graduates report seeing a shift in the process of learning. However, graduates found classroom design hindered the facilitation of collaborative learning. Desks are still screwed in place not allowing students to turn towards each other and work together freely. Teachers are still stuck at the front of the classroom because of where the lectern and control centers are located.

‘Classrooms of the future’ address these issues as classroom designers’ work to create learning spaces reflecting collaborative learning and education. These classrooms have learning commons for students multiple working surfaces with electronic command centers equipped with projectors and display screens. Learning commons allow students to engage socially and actively apply what they are learning. Trends in desk design show innovation in creating learning commons where desks function as a communal workspace with the ability to separate into individual desks.

Classrooms must be flexible with furniture that is moveable and reconfigurable. There are some aspects of traditional teaching that cannot be avoided such as lectures, presentations or explanation of certain concepts. The difference is this style of teaching does not have to be the entire class or every class because the room design allows for adaptable teaching environments.

New collaborative classrooms present some challenges for designers. The use of space becomes very important, as classrooms need to be versatile in use and in design. It is important for designers to work closely with educators and understand the different types of learning taking place and how it is facilitated. Interactive classrooms demand more technology and some might think this is too costly. Remember technology and software are becoming more and more affordable everyday allowing design teams to have freedom in creating multiple learning commons within the classroom.

Classroom designers are central in the learning process because they are the ones creating a flexible space that must cater to various styles of learning and teaching. No longer do we have ‘one size fits all’ learning and this requires increased innovation in classroom design. Initiatives like Design Thinking for Educators through IDEO and Architects for Humanity are doing just that by providing new approaches and resources to schools that are ready to embrace the future design of learning.

The ability to effectively communicate saves us time and money, creates relationships and solves problems. Creating new ideas and products results from collaboration between different people with different skills and different expertise. Sometimes it is hard for people with diverse backgrounds and experiences to effectively communicate especially if you’re dealing with abstract thought. Architects and designers would probably never win first place in an effective communication and collaboration contest with their clients. It is not that architects or designers can’t communicate. These artistic professionals have expertise in a craft that happens to be extremely difficult to explain. We hire architects and designers because they think a certain way and posses skills that we do not have. They create mental imageries and technical drawings that are nearly impossible to verbally communicate.

Architects and designers can look at a 2D blueprint and mentally visualize it in 3D, the average client cannot. Without being properly trained we do not have the mental capacity or spatial reasoning to generate 3D imagery. Time and money is wasted because of miscommunication  and differences in visual perceptions between client, architect and designer.

Software like Google+ allow people to collaborate more efficiently in professions like marketing and PR. Another good example MindJet has produced a platform where mental processes like brainstorming can be created in a visual format and shared with other collaborators. But is there collaborative software for other professionals such as architects and designers that make it easier to effectively communicate?

Now there is. VIMtrek software creates an experience to effectively collaborate and communicate between the different levels of expertise by creating 3D environments that are interactive and easy and free to navigate. VIMtrek takes bland 3D static images and turns them into near photorealistic realistic 3D images and incorporates the bland 2D data into immersive and interactive user interfaces

Less time is wasted trying to explain 2D blueprints and visual imageries. ‘VIMnotes’ allow users to leave their questions and share ideas throughout their visual experience. You do not need to be the architect or the designer to take part in the collaboration – so now even the untrained eye of the clients can see in 3D too.

Vizerra & VIMtrek – What is so exciting about these technologies and why would a Global Investment Banker jump ship and run a technology start up? My goal here is to reflect the challenges, highs and lows of running a cutting edge International software company as the world tries to claw its way out of a Global melt down.

I love 3D, especially the gaming environments, but can honestly admit I am just too old to play war games. This being said, I was really excited to see a Russian company on my tours as an EBRD Banker. The company had taken gaming engine technology with its realism, compression, multi-platform technology and started to produce fully immersive worlds for UNESCO World heritage sites live Venice, Prague and the Vatican City. You should see what they did with the helicopter simulation – I was hooked but there was a key technology error…

We made the usual technology error – “build it and they will come”. Lesson #1 THEY DON’T. Trust me I’ve wasted millions on Network attached storage during my time as COO of Internet service providers. We could not attract any market. Similarly for managed fire walls, people don’t appear to worry about security until they have been broken into- strange it’s the same for our homes.

So here’s a new product, great technology, amazing examples of their craft but no clients and so I joined as COO. I found a vertical that was using 3D but poorly and bitching and winging every time they used it.

The audience: the AEC Industry; Architects, Engineers and Construction folk to you and me. On initial examination they had plenty of tools (Mostly from Autocad and ArciCad, stuff like MentalRay, 3DSutioMax and Independent vendors like Maxwell) that had millions of R&D invested in to them. However, they all suffered form the same issue: Slow to render (we are talking 24 hrs+ in some cases, I am not kidding you), static images or set path video, where you can’t chase Laura Croft round a blind corner. File sizes that are so large you can’t share them even if you are prepared to take three months of work or be Norman No Mates and figure out how to use the software.

So how and why do you create a Joint venture between a Russian software developer and a US database company that creates Building Information Management  (BIM) tools for things like quantity take off and project cost checks and green regulations?  And how do you go about creating a software product – in a box for $800.00 and launch in six months? First, you need a business plan, and not one you could get away with a decade ago. Investors want their weight in paper and will take up to a year to pull the trigger to Invest. so how do you do it and raise 6m Euros for a start up with no revenue that has only had family and friends funding … Oh so that’s where the banker comes in…

What prompts a Global Investment Banker, with all the corporate security of a Diplomatic Passport, to jump ship and leap into the unknown and run a technology start up?

A question I find myself asking as I fly back and forth from the USA to Hungary every other week, clearly it’s not for the air miles or the money. Running a start up is fraught with challenges and dangers and a great deal of stress so it’s not for everyone. BUT trust me it’s as much fun as you can possibly have with your clothes on.

Lets wind the clock back a little to put my experiences into context. This is not for self congratulation, as I’ve made lots of mistakes along the way, but rather as a stamp of authority to even write on the subject.

My purpose is to reflect on the challenges, highs and lows of running a cutting edge International software company as the world tries to claw its way out of a Global melt down (caused by those in my former profession – the Bankers).

My career started with a degree in design and advertising, before computers mind you, so I learnt to set type with “hot metal”. I remember seeing the first desk top publishing app and being blown away. Since then the technology and Moores Law has never stopped or even slowed.

My journey into the “start-up” world began as I created my first design company in a dark and distant UK recession somewhere in the late 70’s. Within 5 years the company proceeded up to the high point of being Eastman Kodak and Johnson & Johnson’s Global brand custodian. At this time I also took my company public on the UK market.

Seeing spending shift to the web, I left the PLC and joined another start up – clearly this foolishness can be traced back to an early age. I joined a seven person team and created ‘Reality’, which turned into Europe’s highest profile web design and build company within eighteen months. We sold the business right at the height of the Internet boom. It was amazing, if you could spell Power Point, you could raise millions in venture capital.

Again I joined a start up in a business I knew nothing about – Web hosting, where I bought and sold three companies in close succession.

With this success I then became a banker!!! Well not really but I spent four years as Senior Advisor for Strategic Planning and Investment for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Visiting countries I had only heard of in school and scrutinising the good, the bad and ugly in terms of thousands of business plans. I had the chequebook and it was great fun.  But my love of technology and design was pulling me back to the world of the start-up.  I couldn’t resist the allure for long and this ultimately led me to VIMtrek.

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