My first Publication Arup_BuildingDesign2020_v2 | Page 12

Kaggle is a predictive modelling and
analytics platform, allowing companies and
individuals to host “modelling competitions”,
submitting project datasets for competitive
crowd-sourced analysis; winning analyses
become the perpetual intellectual property of
the competition host.
Competitive crowdsourcing allows a
vastly broader number of approaches to
be applied to modelling and analysis tasks,
leveraging the collective brainpower of
Kaggle’s 200,000 member data scientists.
Kaggle competitions have resulted in
significant advancements in HIV research,
traffic forecasting and game theory; the
implications for the AEC industry of this
sort of crowdsourcing are enormous. In
addition to promoting thinking “outside the
box”, competitive modelling invites project
solutions from subject area experts and local
specialists inaccessible through traditional
team-building methods.
Location / Business: San Francisco, CA.
Kaggle for commercial use.
Salesforce’s all-day “Build Your Own Dream
Team” recruiting event was designed to
identify top-performing self-selected teams
rather than single job candidates, betting on
collaboration over individual experience.
This unique approach to corporate
recruitment emphasises the value of agile,
creative team-based solution finding when
combined with traditional foundational
training and deep professional skillsets.
The generative capabilities of a smoothly
functioning team, and the attendant cross-
pollenisation across specialisms and
interests, can be a powerful asset in the near
future of the building design landscape.
Location / Business: Portland, OR.
Salesforce for internal use.
Talent Retention
development of future senior leaders for the duration of their
professional career. Specification of talent is evolving alongside
new paradigms for performance measurement; mechanisms
such as value-driven design put a heightened emphasis on
product rather than process, potentially altering the mix of
working styles involved in successful design projects.
Design firms are redefining their expectations and processes
for talent retention, as an industry-wide shift towards
project-based talent curation continues. As individual
designers’ skillsets become more specialised and career-
long institutional allegiance becomes rarer, an opportunity
space arises in the AEC industry for the rapid assembly
of purpose-built teams. Advocating for diversity among
incoming talent will ensure that future building design teams
possess the breadth of experience necessary to engage the
broadest possible range of clients; with regard to outgoing
talent, alumni networks have become increasingly relevant
for maximizing value of departed employees.
Team-Based Hires
Advancements in cloud-based file storage and real-time
communications technologies make it easier than ever for
personnel with complementary skills and personalities to
form highly functional teams regardless of disciplinary
or geographic separation. Companies are leveraging these
abilities with the adoption of team-based hiring, a process
where staff are either acquired as a team or identified as a
potential team via group interviews and activities designed
to assess group cohesion. Team-based hiring is particularly
relevant for the AEC industry, due to the intensively
collaborative nature of our work.
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Case Study: Self-Selected Teams
Case Study: Competiton-Sourced Talent
Value-Driven Design
Design processes that foreground performance, rather
than the mechanisms for achieving said performance, are
increasingly commonplace within the AEC industry. Value-
driven design of this sort encourages firms to both explore
progressive team-building and recruitment processes and
incorporate both talent and design solutions from historically
unrelated industries.
Building Design 2020
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