Integrative briefing blurs boundaries within and across domains, whether spatial, organisational, or professional. This requires new ways of working, and processes and tools for communication and collaboration toward a common language. Coming from a background of traditional architectural practice and now working in the technology sector, Nick Caravella reflects on what he’s learnt in his quest for interoperability to bridge and improve the process of design and construction.

Image source: Avicado

There’s an inherent charm to the arrival of a New Year—a time for reflection as one year concludes and another unfolds, offering an opportunity to trace one’s path. Four years ago (2020), I found myself contributing to the Practice of Architecture. Freshly pivoted from traditional practice into the technology sector, I was eager to share the insights gained from this shift. Two articles, Why Tech Stole ‘Architect and An Architect’s Guide to Anything but Architecture chronicled my journey from traditional practice to the construction technology sector.

When I left practice, I often joked, “I hated submittals so much, I made them my full-time job.” There was something about the inefficiency about logging information into seven systems of record that was soul-killing to me. When I transitioned to tech, I sought to find ways to eliminate double entry and administration that was taking me away from design. Today, I’ve now transitioned from tech to consulting where I now work between the technology and the teams using it. Looking back, here’s what I learned in tech that brought me to my role at Avicado today.

Less is More
Wouldn’t it be nice if we all worked on one platform, the data was shared, and we could all focus on the work and not on how we file it? This was my initial dream. Less time administrating, more time designing. I’m sure many of you reading this can relate. Yet as I spoke with designers, builders, and owners, I learned more and more about how varied our needs were. While we all worked to the same goal of delivering a building, we all looked at the delivery from very different angles. It became clear that…

When you Design for Everyone you Design for No One
While I first heard this term in architecture school, I realized it in technology. There’s this fine line technology has to walk when finding its product market fit. If your technology is too niche, it’s likely there won’t be a market large enough to support it. Yet, if you support too large of a market, you run the risk of not being niche enough to provide unique value for people to choose you. This balance paired with the diversity of design, building, owning, and operating teams needs creates a space where flexible and interoperable technology solutions can outperform a single one.

To Understand a Problem, Take a Step Back
The cool thing about design is there’s this acknowledgement that if you’re not getting the outcome you want, then simply the design is wrong. What I learned from working in the technology sector, was that it’s not going to be one piece of software that will change the world. Rather, the opportunity lies in how we can improve our processes to revolutionize how we communicate and share information across our solutions.

It is Possible to Have Our Data and Share it Too
As I learned about the impacts of bad data in reports like Harnessing the Data Advantage in Construction by Autodesk (2022), I found it interesting that much of bad data could be attributed to the lack of data strategy across teams or interoperability that led to double data entry across systems. It was this realization where I left “traditional” technology to work with Avicado. Finding my place among construction and technology professionals alike, I am dedicated to finding ways to improve how technology and people meet at the delivery of construction programs to improve the overall outcomes of our built work.

As I look back and forward, I envision a bright future for our industry. Learning to wield data in amazing and different ways to drive design and our built environment into the world of tomorrow.

---

‘Architech,’ Nick Caravella brings his background in both construction technology and traditional practice to challenge how we think about the digital future of our profession. His experience across both sectors have brought him to Avicado Construction Technology Services where his focus is on driving the discussion on data culture and its capacity to help our community build better together.