L143 : Journey from Architecture to Innovation Strategist, teaching Virgil Abloh with Thomas Kearns

Thomas Kearns' journey in software development and architecture. It starts with his early interest in combining architecture and technology during his college days in the 1990s.After graduating, Thomas worked at digital design studio in New York where he explored concepts like web urbanism. He later moved to Chicago and co-founded Sandbox, working on forward-thinking architectural projects. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, Thomas went back to school to get a masters, considering leaving architecture. However, he ended up staying in academia, teaching at IIT and exploring urban informatics projects involving big data and generative design. Around 2012, Thomas co-founded the ed-tech startup Bit Space which brought architectural computational ideas like parametric modeling to K-12 schools. After several years of running Bit Space, Thomas joined Perkins&Will as the Director of Design Computation. The interview covers Thomas' self-taught journey in constantly exploring new technologies like VR and AI, his approach to finding flow states in work, and reflections on work-life balance and employee motivations. He shares thoughts on architecture's legacy of overwork and his own evolution in setting boundaries while retaining passion.Thomas offers advice to emerging architects - focus on integratively applying computation in buildings rather than siloed technical roles. He sees major impending changes as AI automates architectural production and hopes the profession responds with more humanistic priorities. He shares wisdom on focusing ideas, working across disciplines, navigating hype cycles, and believing in the longevity of a vision. 00:00 - Introduction 00:03 - Software development journey and mentors 00:53 - College days studying architecture and early web development 06:55 - Graduating architecture school and career options 13:07 - Effective ways of learning and solving problems 19:00 - Economic crisis and pivot 23:20 - Teaching architecture and technology 29:40 - Running an architecture firm and business lessons 34:15 - Work-life balance 37:55 - Virgil Abloh and teaching influence 58:50 - Motivation and achieving flow state 01:15:00 - Metaverse and spatial computing trends 01:21:00 - AI transformation of work 01:38:00 - Advice for computational designers #virgilabloh #thomaskearns #iit #aec #aectech #digitalinnovation