My first Publication Arup_BuildingDesign2020_v2 | Page 8

Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs,
allow anyone with an internet connection
to take university courses over the internet
for free, watching lectures onx streaming
video, using interactive online materials and
cooperatively marking assignments via
social networks.
Case Study: Interactive Learning
MOOCs represent a transformative
development in skill-building and cross-
specialism for the AEC industry, allowing
workers to acquire new skills and prepare for
heavily specialised or culturally-dependent
projects with minimal overhead compared to
traditional learning approaches. The ‘open’
aspects of MOOCs are a double-edged sword
for the industry, as the same technologies
that enable rapid skill acquisition for staff also
enable fiercer competition from designers and
firms in developing markets without previous
access to similar educational resources.
Location / Business: Mountain View, CA.
Coursera for public use.
Generation Gap
Codecademy offers free online courses in
programming languages such as Javascript,
Python and Ruby. The site is modeled on a
social network, and users are encouraged to
support one another, create their own courses
and organise meet-ups.
Codecademy has grown to millions of
registered members in under five years,
with meet-ups held in 360 cities worldwide
and over 100,000 lessons created. The
service’s popularity reflects the reality of
coding becoming a critical skill set across a
wide variety of professions, AEC included.
Codecademy’s platform increasingly serves
not merely as an educational resource
but also as a repository for open source
code modules, allowing students to build
on one another’s knowledge to execute
increasingly complex projects.
Location / Business: New York, NY.
Codecademy for commercial use.
fundamental level of technical currency and help mitigate
the effects of increasing specialisation while encouraging
independent pursuit of new skillsets.
The increasing specialisation of building designers’ skillsets
raises the risk of established designers falling behind a
technological adaptation curve. The implications of this
generation gap were particularly apparent during the recent
global recession; the downsizing of medium- and larger-sised
firms to core, often senior designers meant losing a generation
of new skills and talent. Ensuring that mastery of both the
theoretical and technical aspects of building design is evenly
distributed across all generations of staff will be critical to the
competitiveness and resiliency of the profession.
1.2 Relationships
Building design teams are undergoing a shift in traditional
understandings of both structure and leadership. In contrast to
the traditional model of a designer employed by a single firm
over the duration of a career, talent is increasingly nimble.
Changes in project procurement and a shift toward
methodologies such as Public-Private Partnerships, Private
Finance Initiatives and Design-Build project delivery all
require contractors to assume a greater share of project risk,
and therefore a greater role in design team leadership.
Academic-Industrial and business-to-business
partnerships will play an increasingly important role in
the development, delivery and commercialisation of new
technologies and processes.
Continuing Education
The pace of technological and regulatory advancement
within building design as a field underlines the necessity of
continuing education. A flexible, relevant and competitive
design team will encompass material, technological and
process specialties, possess some degree of interoperability
and be able to synthesise data from multiple collaborative
platforms. Emphasizing holistic programs of continuing
education can both ensure that designers maintain a
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Case Study: Massive Open Online Courses
Building Design 2020
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