Who will make DfMAy an incredible conference!

Last year, when we decided to host for the first time a conference on DfMA, we knew that this topic would have been a challenging experience considering the complexity and the importance that this approach represents both in our company and, more widely, in the building sector of the future.

For this reason, we had set some thresholds below which we could not go in terms of quality of the conference. One of the most significant was the one related to the speakers involved: we wanted to cover different parts of the world and deepen into diverse points of view, markets, and sectors. The result of the first edition has been an undisputable success: more than two hundreds people actively followed the conference enriching the event with dozens of questions and highlighting something we already knew: DFMA is a revolutionary workflow that can seriously value engineer your projects.

We have treasured the feedback from the first edition and this year we raised the bar even more by inviting some of the most influencing international experts who will share their experiences, vision and knowledge on Mass Timber and DfMA.

You can attend the conference both on Zoom and LinkedIn. We are proud to let you know that this conference is completely free on both platforms.

Today,  are glad to present you the five guests that will make DfMAY 2023 a goldmine of knowledge:

Craig Applegath is an architect, urban designer and biologist practicing at the intersection of the built environment and natural ecosystems.

Craig plans and designs buildings, campuses, and communities that are zero-carbon, climate adaptive, and regenerative, and is an international expert on climate mitigation and adaptation through sustainable and resilient design strategies. Craig’s recent work integrates mass timber in the design of sustainable college and universities, and affordable modular housing.

Craig’s commitment to the potential of mass timber has led him to Chair the Mass Timber Institute (MTI) based at the University of Toronto, and co-hosts MTI’s Mass Timber Today podcast.

Craig is the Founding Partner of DIALOG’s Toronto studio, a North American integrated-design firm. In all his work, Craig is driven by a passion for design that addresses the challenges of climate change and its environmental impacts.

---

Gerry McCaughey is Chief Executive Officer of Offsite Tek, LLC, a C-level advisory firm in Los Angeles that provides services to builders, construction materials manufacturers, and other allied companies seeking to capitalize on the transition to offsite construction.

An internationally respected authority on offsite construction, McCaughey has dedicated his career to helping builders on four continents maximize efficiency and boost profitability. He was named “Industry Entrepreneur of the Year” by Ernst and Young and “Manufacturer of the Year” by the National Association of Home Builders. An influential force in Europe’s transition to offsite construction, McCaughey was Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Century Homes in Ireland, and later named Chief Executive of Kingspan Century.

In late 2016, he founded Entekra with key members of Century Home’s management team to transform the way houses are framed in the United States with its Fully Integrated Off-Site Solution (FIOSS^TM). Under his leadership, the company made significant inroads deploying FIOSS, and by 2019 was working or in discussions with many of the nation’s premier home builders.

---

Ricky McLain leads WoodWorks’ Growth and Innovation Program, working on project technical design support, resource creation, and growth opportunity facilitation related to areas such as tall mass timber construction, builder’s risk insurance for mass timber projects, and industrialized/offsite buildings.

He supports the AECD community both directly and collaboratively with WoodWorks Regional Directors, providing in depth technical design assistance. Ricky McLain also has extensive experience in lead engineer roles related to structural design, project management, and construction administration.

Ricky McLain is Executive Director of the Structural Engineers Association of Vermont, and a member of numerous committees and councils related to building design.

---

Kenny’s passion for wood started at a young age of 15 and has been a driving force throughout his career. As a skilled woodman, he has gained practical experience in the industry, working as a trained carpenter and serving as a product manager at Würth and Frøslev Træ. His experience in product management allowed him to develop a keen understanding of the nuances of the industry, from different perspectives. As a country manager for Rothoblaas, he further sharpened his knowledge of the industry.

With a demonstrated history of working in the building materials industry, Kenny is an experienced Technical Advisor. His skills in Sales Management, Purchasing, Management, Business-to-Business (B2B), and Contract Negotiation have been honed over the years, and he is a strong business development professional who graduated from IBA Kolding. With his diverse experience and expertise, Kenny is well-equipped to provide valuable advice and insights to anyone in the industry.

---

Leander Moons founded his design and project management consultancy company Leander Moons Inc in 2019 in New York. With to the fast growth of the project portfolio he established, together with Andreas Trampe Kieslich, OMT architects GmbH in Berlin in 2021. Both companies work seamlessly together from the concept design phase through the project delivery on site. They aim to create and implement sustainable, equitable and empowering design solutions and build projects. The innovative integration of locally resourced and sustainable building materials, with a special focus on timber, has become the focal point in the most recent projects.

Before establishing his own businesses, Leander worked for leading architectural offices in Europe (Baumschlager Eberle Architects), Africa (Bowman Architects Associates) and North America (nbbj design). Leander supervised the Berlin based team of Baumschlager Eberle Architects and the Nairobi office of Bowman Architects and has been leading international consultant teams for complex projects around the globe.

He contributed to the realization of numerous projects in different building typologies and his works have received multiple architectural awards. Leander Moons Inc and OMT architects GmbH are creating innovative design solutions based on local practices and recourses. In addition to the sustainable character of the designs, flexibility in use and implementation is a key contributor to the success of the projects.

---

Franco Piva is a structural Engineer, the founder of Ergodomus Timber Engineering, he has been working in designing wooden structures for over 15 years, taking care of all aspects: statics, building physics, to 3d drawings, and CNC machine programming. He has designed dozens of buildings in Italy and abroad: in particular in Europe, Australia and North America.

He has published 3 books on wooden constructions and often speaks at international conferences.

He promotes the need to have a holistic approach to the design of timber buildings to ensure their durability and performance while keeping costs low. He has adopted and implemented the DfMA (design for manufacture and assembly) approach in all his projects, an approach strictly related to digital models, information sharing, detailing, and on-site problems prediction in a 100% BIM workflow.