Jason Van Nest, RA -- Architect, Teacher, BIM Consultant, and Application developer.

Happy Winter to all. So much is happening. Most excitedly, I have recently enjoyed a new appointment! So cool! More very shortly.

Also, We're "Finalists!" Professor Gandhi and I just completed a competition entry for the ACADIA 2011 Design + Fabrication Competition. We designed a table with a reversible tensegrity base, using Rhino's Grasshopper parametric modeling plugin, and Kangaroo, a physics modeling plugin for Grasshopper. More at Double Deployable.

Also, the Parametric Design work we've led for the SodaBIB was the subject of a school-wide NYIT Exhibition this Fall! We've been asked to present a lecture on the work, and demonstrate how the design process can be expanded into other parts of architectural discourse. How on Earth can we limit the talk to an hour!?

The rest of the winter will be busy. I'll be consulting in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Boston. I'm also finishing my first iPhone App in the next few weeks! Finally, there are travel plans for New Hampshire and Philly, if not further. If your in New York, drop a line!

I was appointed Associate Professor of Architectural Building Technology at NYIT's School of Architecture and Design in Spring, 2011. Among many other responsibilities, this appointment will aid the school's adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) into the curriculum. The appointment rewards a very busy academic year in which I taught SEVEN BIM-related classes -- including a BIM-leveraged Thesis Studio, a BIM Construction Documents course, and a Professional Practice course.

All the research I'm executing with NYIT is documented in the ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCH section below.

I also enjoy an adjunct position in the New York School of Interior Design's graduate program. Last Fall I taught two sections of the MFAIID 636:Construction Documents II course, which required the development of new curriculum. This summer I taught the Introduction to Revit course to build on that work. (Continuing education courses to come...)

In the last three years I have taught sections of the following courses:

I am a licensed architect working in New York City.

I have a small architectural design firm, Mobilis in Mobili, that was formed in 2007 for professional pursuits. Currently, I am designing The Doric House - a speculative Michigan mansion (based on the Doric Order); The Truss House - a Hudson Valley weekend house with dramatic structural constraints; and The Ductile Conservatory - a library and performance space formed from reinterpretations of gothic architecture.

Since 2007, Mobilis has also been engaged for a townhouse in Brooklyn, consulted on a few theater designs, entered two competitions, and fielded other work with the NYC Department of Buildings.

I have worked as an architect in New York since earning my graduate degree in 2005. Pre-license work at H3 includes designing and developing construction documents for several buildings in the New York area. In the those years, I was lucky enough to help design a courthouse, an historic pier, two restaurants, an academy of science, and six theaters; H3 specializes in theater design.

I have worked in architectural firms in Atlanta, New York, and Key West. I have also helped build over fifty homes with the Atlanta Chapter of Habitat for Humanity and with a construction firm on the Upper East Side of New York City.

More and more architecture firms are "flipping" from a CAD-based work flow to one that leverages Building Information Modeling (BIM). My colleagues and I founded Mobilis Modeling to provide support for these forward-leaning firms.

It's easy to get excited about BIM -- it helps architects do their job quicker, cheaper, and better. BIM helps architects design and draft because it helps them harness the power of database-building. BIM creates an environment for architects to collaborate on a common body of project knowledge. Large or small teams can work confidently and efficiently because project decisions are resolved in one place. Please check out the Mobilis web site to learn more!

In the first half of 2011, work with Mobilis Modeling has helped one contractor, three individual sole-practitioners, and one entire office switch to BIM. It has been some of the most rewarding work of my professional career.

Currently, I am developing a prototype building system to re-use empty water bottles as a thatched roofing material. This work is documented at SodaBIB.

The BIB project intends to change the way people view waste. It promotes an upcycling process, repurposing plastic bottles for higher environmental value. The work aims to develop a Bottle Interface Bracket (BIB), a new construction device that permanently attaches waste soda bottles to almost any roof framing. With fellow NYIT professors, I am drafting grant applications to realize advanced prototypes this fall.

Unrelated, I recently completed a residential fellowship at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. That fellowship was awarded to write software for designing custom architectural cladding and then using the software to design a handful of single-family homes. A portfolio of those effort will be posted in the coming months. The work required a body of research that continues to mature. That research about rapid-prototyping and architecture is somehow even more exciting; I am formatting it for a future seminar and possibly publication.

For previous architectural research, I have developed Genetic Algorithms to model city growth in the Processing programming environment. That research, supervised by Professor Ed Mitchell, visualized and simulated rudimentary city models, primarily focused on zoning envelopes and use. My work at the MacDowell Colony will take these tools in a different direction; I already have started to write web-based software from which users can export models of building components, not cities!

To nurture design ideas outside the field of Architecture, I co-founded Anomalus Design Studio with a close friend and former classmate. Anomalus is a startup guided by an appreciation for the power that technology offers and a specific ethic about how we should adapt technology to serve our 21st Century needs.

Already, Anomalus has started a few exciting web-based, product-oriented projects. My favorite is Addimus, a financial planner. The web service displays your current checking account information, and harvests key-words out of your calendar to model your future expenses in the coming months. The prototype is so cool it has already helped our household model a realistic budget for that future real estate purchase!

Also, we recently launched a web service to help colleges manage student work for inspection by national standards organizations. There seems to be a strong market for a graceful online method to help universities earn, or keep their accreditation. Accredimate is our answer.

Finally, we started a proof-of-concept prototype of a portfolio-layout service that interfaces directly with consumer-level media services. Imagine uploading all the text ans images of your next work -- art, essays, multi-media -- and using one web site to lay out your print-on-demand book, your web site, and your advertisements, all from the same files!

Recently, I wrote my first iPhone App with Anomalus; hopefully several of these services will be coming soon to a cell phone near you!

I have lived and worked in New York City for the last several years.

From 2002 to 2005, I earned a Masters of Architecture from Yale University. I focused on Parametric Design, and learned a lot of JAVA and C++. Much of that work was using Processing to build architectural tools, which many people do today with Rhino's Grasshopper.

Between 2001 and 2002 I lived in Key West, working at a local Architecture firm. If you ever see local architect Bert Bender, be sure to say "Hi!" because he's a really nice guy. If you ever make it to Key West, the Dry Tortugas National Park is a boat-ride away, and simply a stunning place to be, architecturally, and naturally.

During the Summer and Fall of 2001, I hiked 1500 miles on the Appalachian Trail. I highly recommend the adventure. There is so much beauty out in the wilderness, just ask William Cronnan.

From 1999 to 2001, I lived in New York City, and worked at both a contractor's and architect's office. I was lucky enough to help design as townhouse with an architect, then help build it with the contractor. I learned SOOO much about the two trades, and why they don't always get along. I also had to solve all the problems I missed designing my first house; a humbling experience for sure.

I earned a Bachelors of Science in Architecture from Georgia Tech in 1999. I started my professional career at an Atlanta architectural firm called Farrington Design Group. My last two years of undergrad were especially instructive, because almost every Saturday I volunteered with the Atlanta Chapter of Habitat for Humanity, helping build over fifty homes.

Most of the work mentioned above was done in Revit, Navisworks, Rhinoceros, Maya, Grasshopper, Generative Components, Maxwell Render, 3D Studio, AutoCAD, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Processing, and several other programs. In addition to these pages, I maintain a presence at Facebook and LinkedIn.