Cesar Escalante
Forma Site Design, available in the AEC Collection or as a standalone subscription, offers powerful AI-powered tools for architects and designers in pre-design and schematic design phases.
Global competitors reimagined “Music City Living 2050,” blending AI, data, and innovative ideas live at Autodesk University 2025.
Every year, the AECO Design Slam brings together the brightest minds in architecture, engineering, and construction to test creativity, speed, and storytelling, all under the spotlight. This year, the spotlight shifted to Nashville, Tennessee, where two teams took on the challenge of reimagining the city’s vibrant Gulch District for the year 2050.
Hosted by Autodesk’s energetic EMCEE Jake Storey and cheered on by Cesar Escalante and Zach Kron from the Autodesk Building Solutions team, the night captured the spirit of innovation, collaboration, and the shared joy of building better futures together.
The Challenge: Music City Living 2050
The competition brief was bold and beautifully local: Reimagine residential living in Nashville’s Gulch District in 2050 by integrating the city’s musical heritage and culture into a sustainable, community-focused, futuristic housing concept.
Armed with Autodesk Forma as their core platform, participants could reach for any tool —from generative engines to AI visualization —to shape their ideas in just under 40 minutes. Forma Site Design served as the background engine for early-stage analysis, supported by ArchiStar and Finch for generative design exploration, and lastly, Forma Board tied it all together, telling their design story.
Team BIM & BBQ: Designing Connection Through Culture
Blending creativity and technical expertise, Jordana de Castro Rosa (AI innovator & BIM manager, WSP) and Timothy Halvorson (Architect & Design Tech Consultant, 7fold) set out to explore how architecture can bring people together.
Their concept began with a single idea: “Just as music brings people together, how can architecture create that same sense of continuity to tie the Gulch District together?”
From there, the team built a narrative around music, food, and human connection. Using Forma’s rapid performance analysis, they quickly evaluated solar gain, natural ventilation, and walkability to ensure every shared space was not only welcoming but also energy-efficient.
“Forma gave us instant feedback on the environmental quality of each concept,” said Jordana during the presentation. “We weren’t just guessing — we could see how each design decision impacted sustainability and livability in real time.”
Leveraging Archistar and Finch’s generative design engines, they explored dozens of massing iterations, balancing density and daylight, before selecting a scheme that celebrated the adaptive reuse of historic structures.
AI renders, Nano Banana, and Veo3, brought the concept to life, revealing walkways weaving between buildings, green roofs, and thoughtful integration of the existing Gulch culture.
Team White Shirts: A Symphony of Modular Design
Facing them across the stage, Daniel Rees (Architect, Skanska) and Marco D’Ambrogio (AI & Data-Driven Design Lead, SWECO) took a different approach. Their proposal framed the Gulch District as a living instrument, with architecture responding dynamically to sound, rhythm, and movement.
Starting with Forma Site Design’s context model, the team mapped sound propagation zones to explore how open courtyards and façades could reflect, diffuse, and amplify musical activity without disrupting residential comfort. Using Finch, they developed the program and planning for the generated building forms, enabling a modular system in which units could expand or contract based on demographic needs. Generative algorithms then optimized circulation and access to public green space.
Their concept imagery, produced through AI-assisted visualization tools like MidJourney and Enscape, struck a poetic balance between futuristic and familiar, evoking Nashville’s skyline wrapped in kinetic facades and shimmering solar glass.
“Our design was about rhythm — not just in music, but in how people live, move, and connect,” Marco shared. “Forma helped us turn performance data into a spatial language.”
The Moment of Truth
After 40 minutes of fast-paced design and bold storytelling, the energy in the room peaked when each team stepped forward to deliver a five-minute pitch of their final solution.
Then, HP, the event sponsor, kept the excitement high with a prize raffle and giveaways, celebrating every participant who brought their creativity to the stage.
Then came the final reveal: the audience cast their votes to decide this year’s champion — and in a close finish, Team BIM & BBQ claimed the title of AECO Design Slam 2025 Champions, earning 55% of the votes. Each winner received an HP ZBook Ultra packed with cutting-edge AI features, while the runners-up went home with high-performance HP monitors.
Both teams showcased the power of fast, data-informed decision-making, a hallmark of Autodesk Forma’s expanding role in the design process. From sustainability analysis to generative exploration and visual storytelling, the workflows demonstrated on stage mirror the same approaches shaping real-world projects today.
Designing Together for What’s Next
The AECO Design Slam 2025 wasn’t just a competition; it was a celebration of what happens when human creativity meets computational intelligence.
From Forma’s instant analysis feedback to AI-assisted storytelling, every moment on stage reflected the future of design: more collaborative, intuitive, and data-driven than ever before.
“It’s not about the tools,” Timothy reflected after the win. “It’s about how they bring people together —across disciplines, across time zones — to imagine what’s possible.”
Marco echoed that sentiment in his reflections after the event:
“Architectural intelligence is not just about technology; it’s about how we can design with data, with empathy, and with shared purpose.”
His words captured the essence of the Slam: that the future of design lies in the balance between intuition and computation, and in our ability to think and make together.
Watch the full 2025 AECO Design Slam recording if you missed the live event and catch every moment of creativity unfold on stage.
And if you’re inspired by what you saw this year, there’s no need to wait. Start exploring Forma today and experience how real-time analysis, AI, and collaboration can transform the way you design!