Gaudí & Digital Twins.

Within our digital ecosystems and emerging technologies area, we have called our internal initiative focused on digital twins as Gaudí.

And, why? What is the real connection between the genius and innovative architect, father of Catalan modernism, and the concept of digital twin?

Beyond our humble tribute to a singular innovator, a pioneer in his field, a true transformer with a magnificent legacy and an exceptional creative contribution in the development of architecture and modern construction of the 20th century, it should be noted that Gaudi was ahead of his time as it incorporated new forms and techniques, based on new work models and the result of the adoption and adaptation of new artistic elements.

Throughout this article, we will share connections to the concept of digital twin.

"An architect is the synthetic man, who sees things clearly in their ensemble, before they are done, that who places and ties the elements in their plastic relationship and within the proper distance". (Antoni Gaudí)

From my personal point of view, I’m a true enthusiast of the Gaudí’s figure, which I have studied. In deepening in his life and work, I’ve found many reasons to make him an exponent of the concept of transformation.

"To transform means to modify, to change, to rethink, to redesign and it cannot be simplified to a simple technification.

His success, as today with digital transformation projects, was based on a new leadership model.

Leadership implies vision, commitment and a purpose.

Leadership within the framework of digital transformation implies making this vision a reality, establishing an actionable strategy, attracting new talent, overcoming resistance to change and, through invisible transformation, establishing new work models and a proper culture.

Gaudí was a "empathy-oriented" leader, with a humanist vision, based on digital values: transparency, horizontality, generosity, reciprocity, openness and participation.

As a summary of his life, I would comment two basic virtues, which would be the model to follow for every professionals of any ambit: work and sacrifice.

"It's a bad matter when a job is drawn as a hard labour. I'm sorry for everyone who works as being under an obligation...One of the finest things in life is to work with pleasure". (Antoni Gaudí)

"To do things well it is necessary: first, love; second, technique". (Antoni Gaudí)

What is a digital twin?

This concept is not recent, but today, thanks to the combination of exponential technologies, it has many promises and use cases in different industries and sectors.

It's important to internalize that the digital twin is an aggregator of multiple technologies.

A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical object or system. The digital twin is made up of three fundamental parts: the physical part, the virtual part, and the connectivity between them.

The physical part is the actual object or process itself. The virtual part, which is not only a digital replica of the physical part, but also acts as a brain, improving and extending the scope of the physical part through artificial intelligence algorithms, simulation and, of course, the ability to visualization and interaction that can only be achieved in a computational environment.

The connectivity between the physical and virtual parts is an essential element for our conceptualization of a digital twin.

This connectivity allows to exploit the great potential that digital twins have to monitor and analyze data from the physical object or system, allows an explosion of techniques that can be used to optimize the performance of the physical part, predict results and identify potential problems through different simulation exercises and predictive mechanisms in a “what if” vision.

In the following image, the difference between a digital model, a digital shadow and a digital twin is shown through the level of maturity and automation of the connectivity between the physical and virtual parts.

Once we've shared our understanding of the concept of digital twin, we would like to return to the connection between Gaudí and digital twins, through different elements that make it explicit.

Pioneer of 3D models.

Gaudí had a great imaginative capacity that allowed him to mentally project most of his works before transferring them to plans. In fact, he rarely made detailed plans of his works; he preferred to recreate them on three-dimensional models, generating “twin models” of his works.

He used to say that he had acquired this spatial sense as a boy by looking at the drawings his father made of the boilers and stills he produced.?Because of this spatial conception, Gaudí always preferred to work with casts and scale models or even improvise on-site as a work progressed. Reluctant to draw plans, only on rare occasions did he sketch his works—in fact, only when required by authorities.

This ties in perfectly with our philosophy of convincing with facts and the construction of a real innovation environment called Digital Twin SandBox that allows exploration, algorithm learning and the enabling different scenarios.

Gaudí studied the organic and geometric forms of nature in depth, seeking how to capture these forms in architecture. Gaudí went from flat to spatial geometry, which translates into the use of geometric shapes such as the hyperbolic paraboloid, the hyperboloid, the helicoid and the conoid, as well as the catenary curve. Gaudí was the first to use this element in common architecture.

Antoni Gaudí takes care of each and every one of the details that shape a project. He made an effort not to leave anything to study and solve, in that search to achieve perfection, beauty. Despite his great artistic intuition, he did not trust him until he solidly verified through experimental research and severe self-criticism that this was the right, perfect and beautiful solution, and for a project or a detail of it.

Avoid the silo effect of digital twins.

Our vision is to build digital twin models based on modular software components enabling a scalability scenario (digital twin model as a service)

These granular elements have a separate software, API or visualization solution implementation and can be combined to form more complex digital twins (digital ecosystem generation)

They're small pieces of software (or services) that are highly configurable and are interconnected with each other, offering different visions and applications of both the physical asset and its digital representation.

Gaudí's architecture is marked both by an innate sense of geometry and volume and by a marked personal stamp, characterized by the search for new structural solutions, which he achieved after a lifetime dedicated to the analysis of the optimal structure of the building, integrated into its environment and being a synthesis of multidisciplinary work (different arts and crafts)

Through his study and innovative DNA applying the practice of new and original solutions, Gaudí's work will culminate in a style that is a perfect symbiosis of tradition and innovation.

Convergence of technologies and multidisciplinary team.

During his student days, Gaudí attended various craft workshops where he learned the basics of all trades related to architecture, such as sculpture, carpentry, forging, glassmaking, ceramics, plaster casting,...

In the same way, it incorporated new technological advances, such as construction in iron or reinforced concrete. Gaudí understood architecture as a work of multifunctional design, in which even the smallest detail had to be elaborated in a blended whole, through multidisciplinary teams.

Gaudí was an innovator in the field of crafts, devising new decorative solutions with the materials he used, such as his way of designing ceramic cladding made with waste pieces (trencadís), in original and imaginative combinations.

Gaudí's works required very large teams and the collaboration of a large number of assistants, both architects and craftsmen and professionals from all sectors. In this context, Gaudí showed signs of his leadership, setting the work guidelines, but, at the same time, giving freedom to the individual capacities of all his collaborators.

Proof of his mastery both in the trade and in human relations is that he knew how to bring together a large number of professionals, all with different ways of working, and create an integrated and perfectly structured team.

The challenge of making things happen.

In the case of Gaudí, the search for new structural solutions reached its culmination between the years 1910 and 1920, when he applied, in a practical way, all his research in his masterpiece: the Sagrada Família.

Through it, he achieved a rational and structured solution, perfectly logical and adapted to nature, creating a new architectural style, original and simple, practical and aesthetic.

In the case of the digital twin, we have also generated our particular Sagrada Familia as an unfinished work that evolves at the same time as the different emerging technologies:

What is the parallelism with the current context of the digital economy?

In commercial approaches there is no greater legitimacy than convincing with facts.

Making things happen. We must not forget that in our hands is the ability to decide. If experience has taught us anything, it is that today's problems come from the decisions we made yesterday.

The relationship model has changed. Clients value authenticity and transparency. Talk, listen to the client. Let's not hide behind a PowerPoint.

Let's not hide behind a PowerPoint.

It's about looking for uncomfortable truths and levers of change. There are no absolute truths in organizations and ambiguity is not an option.

Let's look for new perspectives.

We all read and consume the same sources of information. Let's not share what the client already knows with multiple trends, contexts, numbers, etc. No one knows more than him about his business.

What is your real differential value?

Let's show 4 relevant trends and indicate which one or which we are good at (and the 4 is not worth it). Let's support that trend with facts and back it up with business indicators ("we win if you win")

Focused on real needs and oriented to business benefits. Forget the vision of capabilities. They don't follow you.

Let's learn to rethink and to create value.

How have we applied this philosophy to the digital twin model?

Enabling the concept of digital twin as a service, through modular elements. This approach allows greater flexibility in the design and implementation of the digital twin, as well as greater modularity and scalability, which allows it to be implemented on different platforms and environments.

A digital twin can be made up of different modular components or building blocks that, assembled and configured, can easily meet the specific needs of each business.

A modular (“composable”) approach can be applied to a digital twin in different ways:

1. It can be used to create modular components that can be reused across different digital twins. In this way, core components can be used more quickly and efficiently in order to build the digital twin.
2. It can be used to allow the integration of different enabling technologies in a decoupled and bounded domain form. In this way, the flexibility and scalability of the architecture is promoted by offering mechanisms via API of external data sources, analysis services, predictive services, third-party services, different forms of visualization, …
3. It's applied to offer an open and interoperable platform, in order to connect different digital twins, allowing the sharing of data and information, in order to generate digital ecosystems.

Furthermore, we've generated a real digital exploration environment: Digital Twin Sandbox, based on the following features:

• Digital twin as a service. We have an architecture that offers the capabilities and the way to interact and consume a Digital Twin through services. It enables scalability and flexibility to generate ecosystems.
• Multi-cloud and cloud-ready: Deployment on any Cloud provider: Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Openshift, on-premise….
• Composable. Connection of capabilities in a decoupled way through containers: Predictive models, visualization capabilities, ..

Be Betaholic, my friend!!