ETH Center "Design++" officially opened with the participation of Basler & Hofmann

As part of the online opening, Dominik Courtin, Chief Executive Officer of Basler & Hofmann, and Dr. Konrad Basler, Chairman of the charitable Basler & Hofmann Foundation, shared Basler & Hofmann's reasons for the donation with the more than 400 participants from research and business in a video message. Basler & Hofmann's donation to the ETH Foundation over the next six years will primarily go towards the establishment of a new professorship for "Augmented Computational Design".

Exploiting the potential of digitalization through interdisciplinary collaboration

A characteristic feature of the new research center is its interdisciplinary set-up: the center and the new professorship are intended to build a bridge between architecture, civil engineering, construction and computer science. In his welcome address, Dominik Courtin also emphasized the importance of breaking down silos: "We have more than 30 disciplines in our company. From our own experience, we are convinced that if we want to take advantage of new digital technologies, we need to break down existing silos. That's why we are enthusiastic about the cross-disciplinary structure of Design++".

Insight into the new Immersive Design Lab

As part of the opening, the ETH Zurich researchers involved also gave a first insight into the Immersive Design Lab. The new lab is a central research infrastructure of Design++. It can be used to carry out complex visualizations and acoustics simulations using interactive augmented reality. For example, several researchers can work simultaneously on a computational design model using gestures and voice commands, walk through a concept design in VR or create immersive spatial impressions with Ambisonics.