Architectural leaders join Gehry to form strategic alliance

Gehry Technologies (GT) announced that co-founder and chairman, Frank Gehry, has brought together architects and designers to form a strategic alliance furthering his vision to transform the building industry and the practice of design. As part of today’s announcement, this core group of renowned architects will also serve on Gehry Technologies’ board of advisors.

The alliance intends to enable new approaches to design through technology, to create more effective industry processes and a higher quality built environment. By applying and innovating new technology solutions to old problems such as waste, delay, and miscommunication, this new alliance will lead the process change that the AEC industry needs to confront future challenges. The group represents a new type of professional organization for the 21^stcentury, one which embraces the possibility of technology to empower design. The alliance will work together to drive technology innovations that support the central role of design in the creation of culture.

This group will work collectively with GT to realize and demonstrate better ways of achieving project outcomes: higher quality, more efficient, and cost effective projects. Most importantly, the alliance wants to ensure a context for professional work where the best designs and the best facilities can be realized. GT’s management team—led by CEO Dayne Myers—will be bolstered with the unprecedented experience and strategic guidance of the world’s leading architects, builders and visionaries. They will test, use and support emerging GT innovations and high-profile projects; participate in marketing and public relations initiatives; and catalyze AEC industry change.”

Initial alliance and board members include:

• David Childs, the Chairman Emeritus of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) 
• Massimo Colomban, the Founder of Permasteelisa.com Group
• Zaha Hadid is founder of Zaha Hadid Architects  
• Greg Lynn, known for designing the New York Presbyterian Church in Queens, New Yor
• Laurie Olin, a distinguished teacher, author, and one of the most renowned landscape architects practicing today
• Wolf D. Prix, a co-founder, Design Principal, and CEO of COOP HIMMELB(L)AU
• David Rockwell, founder of Rockwell Group
• Moshe Safdie, a renowned international architect, urban planner, and author 
• Matthias Schuler, one of the managing directors of TRANSSOLAR Energietechnik
• Patrik Schumacher, a designer at Zaha Hadid Architects since 1988
• Ben van Berkelis the co-founder of UNStudi
• Richard Saul Wurman, described by Fortune magazine as an “intellectual hedonist” with a “hummingbird mind".

The advisors will come together today for their inaugural meeting, which will take place at the Freedom Tower in New York. Discussion topics will include: demonstrations of new GT technologies and initiatives; the future of design; and the role of technology in design. BD+C