Reflection on my conversation with Luai Kurdi, Tech Lead at Besix 3D

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Many of you know Dubai is a hotspot for futuristic construction tech so it was great being able to speak to Luai Kurdi, the tech lead for printing concrete at Besix 3D. Besix 3D is a subsidiary of Besix which is quite an established construction company in Dubai. They have really demonstrated their dedication to automated construction technology by printing modular concrete pieces for the walls of an addition to their headquarters.

Luai was on the call with me from his apartment in Dubai where he had a beautiful view of the sea from his apartment in what seemed to be a skyscraper, you can see his view for yourself at 1:19:30 in the video. 

As an architecture student Luai was always looking for new innovations and techniques for architecture even though his school primarily wanted to focus on teaching the old ways. It was on his own initiative that he learned about parametric design. Being skilled in parametric design, 3DCP became appealing to him because of the way the two subjects excel in collaboration. 

A benefit of their technology is that it has the ability to operate while maintaining social distancing. This means that even in April and May of 2020 they were able to complete some prints without putting anyone in harms way. 

In our lengthy discussion we touched on many topics like how the recycle any excess concrete, construction software of the future, heat resistance of printed concrete, concrete pumps, and much more.

Luai speaks enough languages to be considered a polyglot which is quite a feat, this helps him operate in a global environment and communicate better with more people. It is important that people interested in doing a project with Besix 3D have clear goals for what they would like to accomplish and at 1:41:00 you can hear about the typical issues with customer requests so that you can make appropriate considerations. Luai would like more engineers to enter the 3DCP space, the technology still has much progress to be made so it will require brainpower from engineers that will shape the future of contech to push to the next level.