The DaS Symposium Premieres at COFES 2009

By DE Editors

Cyon Research Corporation, host of the Congress On the Future of Engineering Software (COFES), introduced the Design and Sustainability (DaS) Symposium as part as its 2009 COFES event.

The DaS Symposium explored the intersection of design,  simulation, and sustainability in both architecture and manufactured products.

“COFES is a unique gathering of individuals from a wide variety of industry sectors, each with significant interest in software used to design the world around us,” said Cyon Research President and CEO Brad Holtz. “The DaS Symposium exists within that community to look at how design software can increase the visibility of sustainability issues at the design stage.”

New CAD software tools can measure a project in terms of its environmental efficiencies, allowing designers to more clearly see sustainability as a criterion in the design process. For example, 3D simulation can be applied to manage energy use in large facilities or even entire cities. Over a series of sessions at COFES, DaS participants looked to the future of sustainability metrics.

“We convened an exceptional group of sustainability leaders committed to extraordinary change in software to enable sustainable design,”  said John Fox, director of Product & Market Strategy at PTC. “We see untold possibilities for innovation in the emerging Sustainable Performance Software sector and are continuing our effort to build a strategic microcosm of industry partners that can collaborate on this initiative.”

Ken Hall, director of Sustainable Design Systems at Gensler,  presented his insights into this new sector and moderated several brainstorming sessions with symposium attendees over the three days of the COFES conference. Interactive discussions identified the systemic issues and challenges in the industry to the adoption of new ideas, as well as to discover opportunities for collaboration among vendors.

“We are looking for ways that competitive businesses can maintain their intellectual property while collaborating on common issues that will enable rapid uptake of sustainability performance software,” said Hall. “This includes asking and answering questions about interoperability, such as shared metrics, data, and language. It is about getting users, executives, and software developers in the same room. We want to tighten the feedback loop to enable radically improved sustainable design performance.”

Details of The DaS Symposium are posted at cofes.com/DaS. Output from the DaS Symposium will be posted there as it is processed.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.