The Forum will be a stage, a screen, an instrument, and a backdrop, creating space that can be transformed through its use as a venue for convening, public programming, and the arts, fostering a sense of community and encouraging social interaction and engagement. Forum is a prototype for a new way of using new digital sheet metal forming technologies to create large scale, lightweight structures that are easy to produce and quick to assemble.

Justin Nardone is the Founder and CEO of Figur, a hardware company that is changing the way industries are manufacturing sheet metal components. He has over 15 years of experience in design and fabrication of supertall towers, kinetic buildings, digital fabrication and 3D printed structures. Early in his career he founded a company centered around designing human interfaces to technology for commercial and residential spaces. Following that he worked for Gehry Technologies – the software spinoff from architect Frank Gehry. He went on to work in Skidmore Owings and Merrill and then Thornton Tomasetti. At both firms he led several technology initiatives implementing custom developed software, advanced manufacturing processes, and even drone technology. His expertise in the use of digital fabrication technologies has allowed him to bridge the gap between digital design and advanced manufacturing.

inference is a multidisciplinary design firm, research collective, and strategic planning consultancy located in Chicago, Illinois and San Francisco, California with affiliates in Hong Kong and Germany. We provide architecture, interiors, as well as urban and strategic services for the built environment. Our methodology draws deeply on research, analytical processes, and artistic intuition. We work in many design mediums, both traditional and contemporary, and our wide range of capabilities ensures that we engage in a fluid and flexible process that provides our clients with the best possible outcomes. In conjunction with our clients’ collaboration and guidance, our working method is that of an inference. __________________________________________________ _____ Figur is a hardware technology company changing the way industries manufacture sheet metal components. Our goal is to eliminate century old metal forming processes and replace them with digitally driven tools. We have developed proprietary, leading-edge technology that enables manufacturers to produce complex parts without tooling or dies. The elimination of metal forming dies will give manufacturers a competitive advantage in supplying their customers with unique metal products quickly and without the high startup and development costs normally associated with sheet metal fabrication. Our technology has the potential to disrupt current manufacturing markets and uncover entirely new markets that weren’t feasible with existing technologies.