205: ‘Rethinking Your A/E Practice’, with Robert Otani and Alexandra Pollock

TRXL

Robert Otani and Alexandra Pollock join the podcast to talk about how they’re rethinking Thornton Tomasetti’s engineering practice by making technology the foundation rather than an add-on. They share practical lessons on bringing computation into practice at scale, adopting product thinking inside a services business, measuring the ROI of innovation, and eliminating redundancy so teams can focus on the work that actually moves projects forward.

Rob traces CORE Studio’s origins and early bets on parametric tools like Grasshopper, then walks through some other tools they’ve developed that sparked healthy debates about accuracy, transparency, and trust and informed how newer AI tools are designed. Alex highlights how open, community-driven learning at their AECtech conferences and hackathons accelerates capability building and open-source collaboration. The trio also dig into how AI can compress the path to professional proficiency and why leaders must proactively redesign their business model to stay ahead as “conventional consulting” shrinks.

To learn more about Robert Otani and Alexandra Pollock, see the full show notes with links at https://trxl.co/205

To get more great conversations with AEC technology leaders on the TRXL podcast please visit https://trxl.co

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