Advancing Sustainable Homebuilding Through Informed Design

Green Canopy NODE’s Work Beta Testing Autodesk’s New Industry Transformative Software 

For the longest time, the building industry has remained siloed from the manufacturing industry. Yet, it’s at the intersection of these two industries that we can find solutions to quickly build housing and drastically reduce its carbon footprint. 

At Green Canopy NODE, we are dedicated to bringing Industrialized Construction to the world of sustainable housing. Recognizing a significant data transfer gap in preparing 3D architectural models for manufacturing, our team members Abby Willets and Benjamin Hall seized an opportunity to serve as beta testers for Autodesk's cutting-edge software, Informed Design. 

“Informed Design for Inventor is the master planner,” said Abby, R&D engineer. “It really lets me set up the parameters and the boundaries which the architect can take and configure to fit their design, all while knowing it’s manufacturable.” 

As a beta tester, Abby transformed our MEP Utility Kit into a dynamic, configurable Revit family, enabling architects to tailor features and dimensions effortlessly. Gone are the days of laborious coordination for every tweak – with this software, we can envision a future free of shop drawings while streamlining our processes and workflows. 

With an architectural background, Benjamin sees productized building components not as design inhibitors but as enablers of mass-produced quality. 

“Autodesk Informed Design has shown that there’s a way to bring customized details, good aesthetics, and quality engineering into a product that can be mass-produced,” said Benjamin Hall, senior product manager. “Designing with constraints doesn’t curb my creativity – it gives me choices I know will work. And that is good for the planet, the building’s inhabitants, and the building industry.”   

While challenges undoubtedly lie ahead on our journey to affordable, sustainable housing, we see Autodesk’s Informed Design as one of many tools in helping us get there. We extend our gratitude to the Informed Design team, with a special mention to Ryan McMahon, for granting us early access to this transformative software. We eagerly anticipate delving deeper into the full-release version and leveraging its capabilities to their fullest extent. 

 

Construction Technology, Green BuildingAdmin GreenCanopyautodesk, inventor, manufacturing, sustainbility