Insight
Albert Franco is Senior Manager of Data Analytics + Technical Program Management for VDC at Rivian in Los Angeles. He cemented his reputation as a highly enterprising virtual design and construction (VDC) manager when he established WeWork’s San Francisco office, hiring a dream team versed in design technology, construction technology and reality capture. Since being headhunted in 2020 by Rivian to lead their design technology team, Albert is now focused on using 3D models to assist in the acquisition of hundreds of properties nationwide, which will become Rivian service centers and retail spaces.
A career in design and technology
Albert was born and raised in Los Angeles. He earned his bachelor’s in architecture at the University of Texas in San Antonio. “That program is very targeted to build professionals who will hit the ground running right out of their Bachelor of Science,” Albert explains. “So in year one, they're like, ‘we recommend you use Revit.’ And that's very different from a traditional architecture program where no one touches Revit. So, as an undergrad, I really jumped into Revit, and I've been doing BIM stuff since 2008."
After completing his master’s in architecture at Columbia, a watershed moment for Albert was joining Foster + Partners in New York, where he worked to migrate the 40-person team from Microstation to Revit, thus working in two capacities, Designer and Technology support. He transformed that title to Design Technology Lead at WeWork’s New York office.
After two years at WeWork in New York, Albert struck out to successfully establish their San Francisco office.
However, when WeWork’s ambitious plan to IPO in 2019 didn’t work out, the talented VDC team began receiving offers from other companies. One of these calls came from Rivian.
At the time, Albert had never heard of the electric vehicle manufacturer, but he quickly became fascinated, and jumped at the chance to be back in his old stomping grounds of Los Angeles.
Building a nationwide real estate portfolio at Rivian
In their search for more than 150 service center locations and 30 retail spaces, Rivian’s real estate team is using 3D scans to determine which properties are easiest to renovate based on existing floor plans.
Rivian’s team is test-fitting design plans against the point cloud-aligned 3D models to advise the real estate team on whether each proposed property will easily adapt to Rivian’s needs. This has enabled VDC to pioneer a new streamlined way of working: “Today's process is, real estate uploads one property. We send out one of our consultants, they scan it, they BIM it, turn it around. Then we test fit the project or go straight into design once we have checked some clearances.”
When it comes time to begin renovations on the chosen properties, the Rivian design team will use the models to generate Schematic Design drawings and partner with local architects for construction drawings. Albert’s team is able to keep a close eye on all the data created during this modeling and drawing process because the team also encompasses Data Analysts and Data Engineering, who can pull data from the cloud-hosted models.
On making scan-to-BIM invaluable to real estate teams
Now, Albert has his sights on being able to securely share plans, photography and data with contractors and subcontractors, keeping everything up-to-date through future changes in the life of each building.
“The biggest ROI that we have is to capture the space: Let's design the space beautifully. Let's not make mistakes on design and coordination—that's the biggest one. The next one is, what do we have? How do we fix this space? How do we transform this space that we did last year? And when people ask those questions, well, we’ll have the model, we’ll have the drawings, we’ll have the point cloud.”
Albert’s VDC team at Rivian is very advanced relative to a lot of other corporate tenants. He credits some of that advantage to coming through WeWork at a time when the company had a voracious appetite for digital transformation and experimentation. “If you’ve got the resources, do it. Prove the value before your resources run out. We got everything set up at Rivian three years ago, and we've been smooth sailing for about a year and a half now. Now, we're a machine.”
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