Marek Suchocki of Autodesk champions progress in the construction sector
Following my graduation as a civil engineer from Surrey University in 1992, I went straight out to work for Costain,” begins Marek Suchocki, Infrastructure Industry Engagement Lead at Autodesk, “and became the fastest ever move to site engineer in the Southern region, principally working on road infrastructure projects. I managed my own site within 18 months of starting, but while I was progressing, I felt that the one gap in my knowledge was expertise in construction management. So, I took a leap of faith and got a research post at the University of Reading, in the Construction Management and Engineering department.
“While this involved a huge pay cut, it was good to get back to academia and I spent two years researching team building and construction management. I went on to become one of the founders of a department called Advanced Construction Technology, where we experimented with aerospace and automotive tools to see if we could apply them to the construction sector. I also went on to lead a Highways Agency virtual reality project with Taylor Woodrow and WS Atkins, exploring virtual reality and what we might class as BIM tools today. That was back in the mid-90s, and when I first developed a passion for the digital world.
“Following a short stint working in Poland, I joined WS Atkins and spent eight years in research and innovation; our team was called VROOM (Virtual Reality and
Object-Oriented Modelling Systems), and we explored emerging technologies to see how they could be applied in the real world. We were one of the first adopters of Navisworks and Revit, which are now well-established Autodesk solutions. When I left there, I worked for another engineering consultancy and have always tried to push the digital agenda, but from an organic, non-prescriptive perspective,” he explains.
“I enjoy helping companies and their customers leverage tools to work smarter, not harder. I’ve also worked on best practices and just over 15 years ago, was hired by Autodesk to join a new program around enterprise. I was the first customer success manager outside the US and went on to work in business development for over ten years. For the last two and a half years however, I’ve been in a new role, where I try to intentionally manage how we work with professional institutions, mostly with a North American and European bias, but still very much a global role nonetheless.”
New ways of working
Over the past four decades, millions of people have trusted Autodesk’s Design and Make technology to transform how their products are made. In the process, the company has transformed what can be made. Today, Autodesk’s solutions span countless industries and empower innovators around the globe. With Autodesk Construction Cloud, teams can collaborate securely and quickly, so projects can be delivered on time and on budget. Connected tools for every workflow ensure projects can be managed from design to done.
“Across the construction sector,” Marek continues, “not every organization is the same. Introducing technology and processes at higher tiers of the supply chain is one thing but trying to convince those at the lower tiers who may not have the capacity to invest in technology or are not being engaged or educated correctly is something completely different. This creates the problem of a multi-speed industry, where only some are embracing new solutions and options.
“Whether driven by legislation, mandates or contractual obligations, people tend to do the bare minimum to fulfil their contracts, and partly so, because they’re busy. Our industry is under-resourced. Many businesses have full order books but don’t have time to pay attention to implementing appropriate and value-adding technology. A cost-based mentality still pervades; people tend to look for the lowest cost as opposed to the best solution. As such, we need to move from short-term thinking to look at the value derived from technology over the longer term. There needs to be a realization or acknowledgement that traditional ways of working are not in some way better or less risky than investment and adoption of technology enabled digital workflows. We must get away from accepting waste, error, re-work as just the way it is in the AEC industry; it can be more exciting, fun and stimulating by making technology an enabler of a new age of construction.
“A lack of resources and challenges such as increasing material prices, means that we probably need to innovate in terms of how we do things,” he adds. “From reusing materials to robotics or 3D printing, there’s a degree of inevitability that we can’t carry on as is. While we’re still quite some way away from this, when I worked at the University of Reading in the mid-90s for example, a colleague spent some time in Japan where they were already experimenting with technology, like robots, on construction sites. Japan’s ageing population necessitates finding new ways of working, and I think we’re all in the same space to a certain degree. So, we haven’t quite cracked it yet, but there is a lot of research ongoing. The first person to go beyond proof of concept and start mass producing and making economically viable solutions will really shake the system.
“AI will obviously play an instrumental role, however there is only so much AI can do without good source information. Some owners are already sitting on substantial datasets that need to be used internally and by their suppliers. Too often, however, the data is accessed only by a few specialists and even ignored or forgotten once created. When more organizations get smarter at ensuring their data is high quality, is maintained, and gets used, it may be the game changer to make digital the new normal. It’s crucial to have structured data that can be mapped to designs. We are trying to promote a model-based workflow. So, if those model elements can be enhanced with robust, consistent carbon information, then analysis is increasingly possible. More iterations can be designed and assessed for viable and sustainable structural solutions.”
Data-driven decision making
Indeed, data on existing assets can help to shape planning considerations for new assets, by calculating whole life costs and overall value. Data can help to inform and guide future projects. “Some companies are already using AI to help them understand their own knowledge base, enabling them, for example, to bid for work based on their experience. While bid writing may be low-hanging fruit, there’s greater opportunity in terms of eradicating the routine processes carried out by designers and engineers, which can free them up to focus on the more creative aspects of a project. I don’t think human discernment will ever be replaced but rather there will be an expert operator overseeing the implementation of AI, so that people can stop doing laborious, routine work and embrace their creativity.
“Across AEC, we cannot ignore the fact that some are still to be persuaded to make the move from paper or to a model-based approach, which is particularly true onsite where paper drawings and forms are held in high regard in comparison to the, much quicker and easier, use of equivalents in mobile solutions. This challenge remains with the readiness of industry professionals, trades and at the client level. It will take some time before we have confidence that AI is generating correct, accurate answers. Ultimately, we are building things that people drive on, and live, work, and play in, and we don’t want those things to ever fail.”
In 2026, Marek will have the honor of serving as President of the Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors (CICES). The current President, Alison Watson, is dedicated to encouraging young people to join the industry and Marek intends to follow suit. “Alison really wants more young people to enter our industry because we do build amazing things. If you want to address the sustainability and environmental challenges facing the world, the best place to be is working in our industry. I’m excited about seeing how technology can enable the next generation of practitioners to do things more effectively. Technology has the potential to provide the options and outcomes so that humans can choose the best scheme to meet the desired outcome. Rather than choosing the cheapest option, outcome-driven decision making will be the determining factor. This will also play into stakeholder engagement. By leveraging the animation and visualization capabilities of digital tools, stakeholders will be able to better understand how a prospective project will perform.
“I really want our industry to become a place where young people want to work because the sector has been able to leverage the most advanced technologies to deliver the most beneficial solutions. I want to be a change agent and to promote our industry more positively. In cities around the world, people are walking around and looking at beautiful buildings. As humans, we love the built environment as much as the natural environment but don’t tend to celebrate it enough. If we can educate a little bit more about what’s possible and why doing things differently will help us achieve greater quality, then that can only be a good thing,” Marek concludes. “We need to achieve effective whole-life analysis of assets to ensure optimization of the built environment, and having structured, robust data is critical to achieving this goal in the long term.”