Thursday October 15th, 2026
Over 80 professionals in the AEC industry gathered at the Manhattan office of Perkins & Will for a Digital Design Community event on October 15th. With presentations spanning environmental AI and computational engineering to firm-wide digital innovation the event featured CASE’s own Dennis Shelden, Associate Professor and Charlie Portelli, Adjunct Professor at CASE and Senior Associate | Digital Innovation Strategist at Perkins & Will alongside Holger Schulze-Ehring of Buro Ehring. As the design and construction industries are rapidly evolving so are the tools shaping how we interact with lifespan of a project, and the methods used to produce increasingly complex product.
Each presentation addressed cutting-edge technology with built work at multiple scales. Dennis Shelden dove into the realm of environmental intelligence and the future of AI use at CASE, confronting the ways in which we can harness it to optimize workflows, enhance our ability to understand buildings using digital twins and behavior occupant modeling, model building forms and their surroundings using trained AI systems and more. Charlie Portelli dove into his firm-wide digital innovation and computational strategies focusing on address-based data and mapping solutions to understand the full spectrum of possibilities for buildings and sites for a given project.
CASE is excited to continue our work to optimize use of cutting edge design tools and strategies and to harness the power AI in design. We’re approaching these evolving systems in a human-centered way to enhance R&D and achieve our mission of decarbonizing and creating a healthy and resilient built environment. With power in numbers, events like this connect professionals of all levels across the design industry to share ideas and enable collaboration for scaled projects and real-world applications and results.
Media Contact:
Kathie Brill, Program Manager
Brillk@rpi.edu