The Future of Making: Design automation and imagination

The global middle class is growing faster than at any time in history: 400,000 people join the middle class every day. This increasingly urban population—68% will live in cities by 2050—creates a greater demand for everything from food and water to housing, transportation, and infrastructure. But that demand comes at a cost: fewer natural resources, less skilled labor.

So how do builders, designers, and manufacturers make all that humanity needs while minimizing negative impact? How do they build while producing less waste and fewer carbon emissions? How do they create with fewer resources and cause less harm to communities? With the global population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, people must rethink the way they make things.

Automation presents an opportunity to do better. The tools and automation technologies to help people meet design challenges are out there, so rather than worry about automation taking their jobs, people can focus on where they can take automation. By pairing their imagination with new forms of computer automation, people can design better things, fabricate them in better ways, and make work better and more meaningful. Because within the inevitability of more and the reality of less lies the opportunity of better.