Autodesk Celebrates at Its Revamped Gallery

San Francisco mayor thanks Autodesk for officially locating their HQ in her city

Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost preparing to introduce San Francisco mayor London Breed at the opening of the revamped Gallery.

Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost preparing to introduce San Francisco mayor London Breed at the opening of the revamped Gallery.

The Autodesk Gallery reopened earlier this year with great fanfare. There to give an inspirational and heartfelt christening was San Francisco mayor, London Breed:

I love that the city—after dealing with the challenges of a global pandemic—is finally reopened and we’re able to see one another, we’re able to hang out with one another, we’re able to engage with one another. And let me just say this: this place is so impressive. It’s innovation at its best. I feel like I went into the wrong field. [Laughter from the audience]. I started as a chemistry major in college and got tired of focusing on extractions with methylene chloride and all that stuff and decided it was easier for me to just talk. So, I went into politics.

I’m really grateful to be here today to talk to all of you because, as I said, it’s been a very challenging time for our city. I was born and raised here. I love San Francisco. I have been through some challenging times in my life.

I never thought that I could be mayor of the city. For me, it’s a privilege, it’s an honor, a responsibility that I take seriously, one that I’m really proud of. From growing up here, it’s not a challenge for me to engage in combative discussions because I grew up fighting. I was fighting all the time. It was with my fists and now it’s with my words. What I care about most is fighting for the city because I know the opportunities that it presents. I know the innovation and the excitement that the city can offer. I grew up in very, very challenging conditions. I am happy to be here now.

Part of being here means that you take a role like this and you help to make magic happen for other people. And part of it is working with good partners, not only in our business community, but also those in our political community. Today is Wednesday. On Monday, I swore in Matt Dorsey as the District 6 Supervisor. I’m really grateful to have him here. Because we know that there are a lot of challenges around safety in the city that I know people are concerned about. Andrew and I had an opportunity to talk about that. And I want you all to know that that is our number one priority, keeping the residents, keeping the workers, and the people of this city safe. Because if you look at these windows, if you go on these hills, and you take a look at the views, there is nothing more beautiful than San Francisco. This is why people come here. They come here because it is an inspiration. All of this technology and all the work that you do for your customers—whether it’s to create a motion picture or to create someone’s dream home, or whatever it is—a lot of that innovation in that work means coming together, having the conversations and being inspired by the natural beauty that’s all around. What I want to do is make sure that in addition to the natural beauty, the experiences that you have on the ground are also good experiences.

This year, I’m going to be introducing my budget. You would think San Francisco, which has a population of not even 900,000 residents and a budget of about $13 billion, that we would have a utopia. But like any major city, it isn’t. Hard decisions will need to be made. Changes will need to be made. But as Andrew talked about the values of who we are. The diversity of who we are is our strength and what makes us such a great city. I’m glad that Autodesk has chosen to make San Francisco its headquarters. It’s a natural fit. Besides, I can’t imagine Andrew with a cowboy hat. A Warriors hat, maybe. My hope is that as we start to return to work, that people want to return to work, that people want to be here, that people want to be around one another. Our downtown area is changing every single day—more and more people are coming back to work. More and more people are coming back to restaurants. The Warriors are in the playoffs. In fact, all of you should get on the train right now. Because the game is about to start. Go and watch it at the Chase Center on the big screen with a bunch of other fans.

I was at a baseball game yesterday. My name is London. I’m in New York with the Mayor of London. That was kind of cool. He threw out the first pitch.

[Back to San Francisco]—the concerts, the events, the activities, walking across the street to the Ferry Building to purchase wine or bourbon and to have a meal in the city and then hop on the ferry and head home to Marin or other places that you may live in the Bay Area. Ultimately, we want you to have good experiences here. We want you to love San Francisco and the way that it deserves to be loved. Part of what I plan to do continuously as mayor is to fight for what we know are some of the challenges that persist. I don’t want you to take the narratives and what you hear about San Francisco on social media and other things to be the reality because it’s so much more than that. This is a city that, especially during COVID, made the hard decision before any other major city in the U.S. to shut down. And although we are one of the densest cities in the country, we saw one of the lowest death rates, not even 900 people throughout the entire global pandemic died from COVID. And when you think about that, that’s extraordinary, with 84 percent of people in the city who are fully vaccinated.

So, we know how to make magic happen. We know how to do great things in the city. And we’re going to continue to do that as we reopen. Our economic recovery is going to be critical to the success of the city. That’s why I’m here. Because I want you to know—you being here and choosing this as your headquarters, the customers being here, making it clear that they want innovation and excitement. And they decided they wanted to come to San Francisco to be nosy just like me and see what you’re doing. All of that means something to us.

We’re grateful that you’re here. And we hope that you come back. We hope that you decide that you want to work over and over again, in a space like this where you can get free gummy bears anytime. I want to thank you again for choosing San Francisco as your headquarters. I want to thank you for bringing together work—technology, innovation, the art, creativity, all of the things that make our city so magical. And I look forward to seeing some of the next projects that you will create. I want you to say, “Mayor, I thought of this idea when you showed up that day for the announcement that we’re going to be having our headquarters in San Francisco. This came to me on that day. And now it’s alive on the big screen. And we’re gonna make you the star of the motion picture. You know, they put me in The Matrix, right? I have a cameo. You can look for me.

With that, I’m going. Thank you all so much for being here in an exciting time for our city. Please continue to play an important role in being a part of that excitement by not only coming to work and going to our restaurants and visiting and participating in activities but continuing to do the amazing work you do here to make magic happen.

Thank you so much.

CEO Andrew Anagnost looked on proudly as Mayor Breed spoke. Approximately 200 Autodeskers were in attendance. Engineering.com was there to record the event.

To attend, we all had to submit to COVID screening, testifying that we were vaccinated, providing proof of this and agreeing to wear masks—a reminder that COVID was not over, and perhaps also to save the mayor from the political fallout of attending a superspreader event. But at the event, few wore masks, including Mayor Breed.

Autodesk had taken the opportunity to totally revamp the Gallery. It has 13 interactive exhibits now and more open floor space.

“The exhibits follow a theme now and there is more space to accommodate events like this,” said CEO Anagnost.

But we miss the Steve McQueen-inspired Mustang that was previously on display at the Gallery. It was the real deal—the whole car on display. It had to lifted up by a crane and passed through the 2nd-floor window. If Anagnost now has it in his garage, he is not admitting it.

The main story to emerge from the event was that Autodesk was officially moving to San Francisco after its origin and all its history just north of the city in beautiful Marin County (and full disclosure, home of the author). The move was mostly symbolic but important for the mayor as the city, once the favored location for tech, had become the favored location for the homeless and which saw tech companies filing out. There is a surplus of office space and rents—once the highest in the country—are at levels not seen in over 20 years. But the company had been operating as if the Market St. office was its headquarters, with all the chief executives there, so operationally at least, it will be business as usual.

 Elizabeth Hausler, CEO and founder of Build Change. (Picture courtesy of Build Change.)

Elizabeth Hausler, CEO and founder of Build Change. (Picture courtesy of Build Change.)

There to explain Build Change, a nonprofit organization that helps areas under the threat of or which are suffering from natural disasters such as earthquakes and typhoons, was CEO and founder Elizabeth Hausler. A civil engineer by education (PhD from UC Berkeley), Hausler is all about resilience. We saw buildings in Colombia that were being retrofitted to resist future earthquakes. Autodesk technology, specifically generative design, enables Build Change to automate the design and construction, and with limited staff and funding, be able to service many buildings.

Hot enough for you? New Mexico-based D/P/S can orient buildings to mitigate the blazing desert sun.

Hot enough for you? New Mexico-based D/P/S can orient buildings to mitigate the blazing desert sun.

New Mexico-based Dekker/Perich/Sabatini (D/P/S) architecture design firm focuses on exterior and interior design, planning, engineering and landscape architecture. Recognizing that buildings account for 40 percent of global emissions, D/P/S offers sustainable design elements and claims it can provide them in a cost-effective manner.

What technology display would be complete without an example of generative design. And Autodesk had more than one. The fanciful rendition of a swingarm show on the right may never have seen production but still finds a home in the Gallery. It gains a modicum of cool by being associated with what is repudiated [MG3] to be the world’s fastest electric motorcycle.

What technology display would be complete without an example of generative design. And Autodesk had more than one. The fanciful rendition of a swingarm show on the right may never have seen production but still finds a home in the Gallery. It gains a modicum of cool by being associated with what is reputed to be the world’s fastest electric motorcycle.
Living wall. Hooman Koliji, CEO of Biobuld.io, was on hand to explain how individual crop plants could be grown on walls and be fed, watered and maintained using AI.

Living wall. Hooman Koliji, CEO of Biobuld.io, was on hand to explain how individual crop plants could be grown on walls and be fed, watered and maintained using AI.

NEST, short for the Next Evolution of Sustainable Building Technology, and not to be confused with Google’s IoT thermostat, is a Swiss research project where a digital twin of a building monitors the internal environments of the physical building. With three thousand networked sensors, every aspect of every room can be controlled, and according to NEST, energy consumption can be reduced by 25 percent.

Future Communities displayed an interactive game using AI that lets people compete to design a resilient and sustainable community. (Picture courtesy of Autodesk.)

Future Communities displayed an interactive game using AI that lets people compete to design a resilient and sustainable community. (Picture courtesy of Autodesk.)