LEO A DALY has appointed Steven L. Pliam as Design Technology Leader. He is based in the Minneapolis design studio.
The Design Technology Leader has firm-wide influence – responsible for setting strategy, developing and leading the firm’s Design Technology team. Pliam will oversee the deployment and use of technologies such as computational design, parametric design, digital practice, reality capture, visualization, virtual/augmented reality, GIS and AI/Machine Learning.
He will report to Chief Information Officer Stephen Held and be embedded with Global Design Principals. He will also work closely with Global Practice Leaders, Technical Forum Leaders, Digital Practice, Information Technology and Company Leadership to develop, align, and deliver on LEO A DALY strategies through day-to-day initiatives.
“Throughout our 100+ year history, LEO A DALY’s legacy has been rooted in technological and design innovation. Today, we’re reinventing what that looks like. By marrying design and technology in this new, national position, and with visionary computational designer Steven Pliam in that role, we are investing in an evolution in design process and delivery that will place us at the front edge of the AEC industry,” said Steven Lichtenberger, AIA.
Pliam’s career of cutting-edge design
Pliam has been a trailblazer in computational design throughout his 25-year career. He got his start in 1995 at Frank O. Gehry & Associates, where he pioneered computational approaches to help realize buildable designs for some of the world’s most inventive buildings. While there, he worked intensely on the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, and the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Washington, and helped establish Gehry’s Department of Computational Design Research.
As his career progressed, Pliam continued to build a reputation for revolutionary design technology. His custom software applications for architectural fabrication and the automation of design-to-material construction processes have enabled some of the world’s most challenging building projects. From 2005 to 2007, he worked as a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab, where his work involved human-machine interfaces, animatronics, innovative form-finding methods, and new digital design systems for architectural fabrication, visualization, and design. He also directed BIM and visualization studios for the design firm KDG in India, where he pioneered new methods of design visualization.
Pliam has a Master of Science in Media Arts & Sciences degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Architecture degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota, and a Certificate of Special Studies from the Goethe Institute. He has teaching experience at MIT, the University of Minnesota and Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis. His research and projects have been published in Architectural Record, Plan77, Form, Elementa, Archinect and Future Arquitecturas.
Related Stories
Codes and Standards | Feb 12, 2015
ASHRAE, USGBC, IES consider biomass requirements in green building standard
The proposal would add biomass to approved renewables.
Codes and Standards | Feb 12, 2015
New Appraisal Institute form aids in analysis of green commercial building features
The Institute’s Commercial Green and Energy Efficient Addendum offers a communication tool that lenders can use as part of the scope of work.
Office Buildings | Feb 12, 2015
Is Houston headed for an office glut?
More than 13 million sf could be completed this year, adding to this metro’s double-digit vacancy woes.
Modular Building | Feb 12, 2015
New shipping container complex begins construction in Albuquerque
The Green Jeans Farmery already has a hydroponic farm component courtesy of owner and entrepreneur Roy Solomon.
Transit Facilities | Feb 12, 2015
Gensler proposes network of cycle highways in London’s unused underground
Unused tube lines would host pedestrian paths, cycle routes, cultural spaces, and retail outlets.
Healthcare Facilities | Feb 11, 2015
Primer: Using 'parallel estimating' to pinpoint costs on healthcare construction projects
As pressure increases to understand capital cost prior to the first spade touching dirt, more healthcare owners are turning to advanced estimating processes, like parallel estimating, to improve understanding of exposure, writes CBRE Healthcare's Andrew Sumner.
Transportation & Parking Facilities | Feb 11, 2015
11 of the nation’s best ‘Complete Streets’ policies of 2014
Austin, Texas, and Troy, N.Y., are among the cities with the strongest safe streets policies, according to a new report.
Sponsored | Roofing | Feb 11, 2015
New school blends with local architecture using Petersen metal roof
Perkins Eastman in Stamford, Conn., designed the school to emphasize and integrate the International Baccalaureate curriculum throughout.
Mixed-Use | Feb 11, 2015
Developer plans to turn Eero Saarinen's Bell Labs HQ into New Urbanist town center
Designed by Eero Saarinen in the late 1950s, the two-million-sf, steel-and-glass building was one of the best-funded and successful corporate research laboratories in the world.
Architects | Feb 11, 2015
Shortlist for 2015 Mies van der Rohe Award announced
Copenhagen, Berlin, and Rotterdam are the cities where most of the shortlisted works have been built.
