Leadership Edge: TRXL 180
The Dynamo Story: Creating tools out of necessity, empowering architects as coders, open-sourcing Dynamo, and transforming AEC workflows through community-driven innovation and visual programming.
Summary
In this special Campfire Series episode, I sat down with Ian Keough—widely known as the father of Dynamo—for a deep dive into the origin story of one of AEC's most transformative tools.
“Dynamo wasn’t about programming—it was about people trying to get their job done better.” – Ian Keough
From humble beginnings in a mezzanine at Buro Happold to becoming a foundational pillar of computational design inside (and outside) of Revit, this episode recounts how Dynamo evolved from a scrappy utility library into a global platform with millions of installs and a vibrant community of computational designers.
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Side note: It’s interesting how many scratch-your-own-itch projects have become beloved—dare I say juggernauts—over the years. Tools like HumanUI, Ladybug, Speckle, TestFit, and many others are prominent examples. Check out the links at the end of the newsletter to listen to those creators and others on the podcast.
