Façade automation workflow a finalist in Fast Company’s 2019 Innovation by Design Awards

The program recognizes creative work at the intersection of design, business and innovation. This year’s applicant pool was the most competitive the publication has ever seen, with more than 4,300 entries vying for top honors.

Affectionately named after its creators Ali Tehami, Architectural Designer and Computational Design Expert, and Roberto Spadaccino, Building Information Modelling (BIM) Manager—the eponymous process automates façade design and detailing. The automation tool was born from time poverty within the architectural process on the firm’s Melbourne Connect, a flagship project for the University of Melbourne that will create a hub for the metropolis’ greater business community that will display a glazed façade with varying patterns and degrees of opaqueness. As a result, the project team pushed architectural and design boundaries with this newly implemented tool which allowed for the creation of an incredibly dynamic exterior displaying over 2,300 panels that can be built within the client’s timeframe.

Faster than any industry-standard existing manual process, the concept is able to reach detail documentation levels more efficiently – ultimately saving weeks of time. More so, the Tehami-Spadaccino Workflow enables designers to simultaneously explore multiple options and iterations without delaying implementation. Responding in real time, the technology readily documents the design throughout the project’s lifetime to help manage the project as well.

Since implementation, the workflow has supported other project teams such as the unique cross-crossed pattern of commercial tower 1000 La Trobe in Melbourne and the textural façade of Auckland, New Zealand’s upcoming Federal Street—a competition-winning scheme for a mixed-use tower. Looking forward, this vision has enormous potential for implementation when considered at a global scale for the firm’s 17 studios.

The awards can be found online or in the October 2019 issue of Fast Company which recognize people, teams and companies solving problems through design. The program will include 438 leaders in architecture, fashion, graphic design, data visualization, social good, user experience, mobility and more.

Honorees will be celebrated at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York in early November 2019.