DBF
/
Company
/
Team

Our Team

Join the global team shaping the future of sustainable building design at DBF.
Apply now to be part of the revolution in architecture and development.

We are accessible, pragmatic and scientific, polymaths, designers, and coders, driving the next revolution in sustainable building design.

Our Two Co-founders

Camiel Weijenberg
Co-Founder // Architecture

Graduate Masters AA - London. Wilkinson Eyre and Zaha Hadid for 4+ years gave him great insights into Architecture and Technology. While gaining vital industry knowledge on the major flaws present in the industry.

He is also the founder of Custo, an online technology customized furniture, and WEIJENBERG, an award-winning multi-disciplinary design studio. Having started multiple businesses, Camiel has created valuable experiences which he has applied and shared with all of his companies.

Sayjel Vijay Patel
Co-Founder // Design Computation

Researcher, teacher, and coder - Sayjel is a Founding Professor at the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation and a graduate of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, Massachusetts.

Previously he was a researcher with the SUTD DManD Center, MIT Digital Structures, MIT Senseable City Lab, and RMIT Spatial Information and Architecture Lab. He received his architectural training with COOP Himmelblau (Vienna), KPF (New York), and Gensler.

The Story of DBF

Sayjel and Camiel met 5 years ago when they joined forces to drive sustainable transformation of the building industry.

As fellow colleagues at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) in 2016, Camiel and Sayjel noticed a shift in the way buildings and cities were being designed and constructed in the developing world. Architects were under tremendous pressure to deliver more projects in less time. At the same time, only a small group of firms were taking advantage of the benefits of digital working methods.

From these discussions, DBF was born. It was founded on the value of "fast, informed design” - the notion that architects need to move past intuition and leverage science and method to drive the best project outcomes.

Today DBF is part of a growing movement seeking to digitize the building industry to drive greater sustainability, higher design quality, and livability.

Our Wise Advisors

Carlos Moreno
15’ Minute City Inventor - TED Fellow
Knight of France

Carlos Moreno, an esteemed researcher and Associate Professor at Paris IAE – Panthéon Sorbonne University, co-founded the ETI Chair for "Entrepreneurship – Territory – Innovation." His impactful work addresses urban challenges, influencing global projects. Recognized with honors and awards, he's a visionary leader in urban transformation.

Prof. Jianxi Luo
AI-Driven Innovation
G20 Professor

Jianxi Luo, Assoc. Prof. at SUTD, directs Data-Driven Innovation Lab. G20 Prof., editor, and MIT Ph.D. recipient. Formerly faculty at NYU, scholar at Columbia and Cambridge, he's a distinguished figure in innovation research.

Tam, Kam Ming Mark
Professor
Hong Kong

Kam-Ming Mark Tam develops computational design strategies for translating design goals into solutions through the advancement and integration of computational, structural design, and modelling methods, as well as digital manufacturing techniques.

Bige Tuncer
Urban Informatics
PI Singapore National Science Experiment

Bige Tunçer, Associate Professor at Singapore University of Technology and Design, specializes in design computation. With a PhD from Delft University, she emphasizes evidence-informed processes for sustainable architecture.

Dr Prof Christophe Sigrist
Professor
Switzerland

Professor Christophe Sigrist, BFH Wood Division lead, a pioneering figure in timber engineering. His collaboration with DBF fosters innovation, advancing sustainable multi-storey wood and hybrid building design for the future.

Our Team

Camiel Weijenberg
FOUNDER & CEO
Singapore

“When I worked on a construction site about 30 years ago I learned that buildings are the result of a combined effort of many many people. They are a hive of people, logistics and planning, my work was simple of course but the experience taught me that a simple house is a great effort let alone a small neighborhood.This effort is many years later intensified with larger than life challenges and an industry that has outdated itself. We drive change and innovation for our community and aim to solve large and small problems.”


Sayjel Vijay Patel
FOUNDER & CTO
Singapore

“The building construction industry faces an existential crisis. It is one of the least digitized industries and the world’s leading producer of C02 emissions. With rising temperatures around the globe and mass migration to urban centers, there is a dire need for a digital disruption that will enable more sustainable ways of working.

As CTO of Digital Blue Foam, I am interested in developing tools which merge the benefits of human and AI-generated reasoning to provide new insights and solutions to address the  environmental impact and performance of a design”.


Tejas Chavan
CHIEF COMPUTATIONAL OFFICER
Singapore

“My brother and I grew up playing with building blocks in my dad's architecture studio. We created fortresses, moats, bridges and dungeons, where wars & alliances, betrayals and comebacks took place. We built worlds and populated them with toy characters, each with their own stories. I want to bring that joy of creation to architecture through Digital Blue Foam. I envision a playground, where architects breathe life into their designs, accounting for the grand, the mundane and the serendipitous.”

Cesar Cheng
HEAD OF PRODUCT
Columbia

“For anyone working in the construction industry it is not a secret that we spend an enormous effort trying to meet deadlines, updating drawings, revising and changing the design of projects. It always feels like there is very little time and a lot to do. This happens because we are trying to keep up with the fast pace delivery time of our current world and we still work the way we used to decades ago. The construction industry has lagged behind in adopting digital technology to improve performance and productivity. Our mission is to change that. We develop digital solutions to accelerate the digital transition of the construction industry because we believe technology will be the key to help us overcome the biggest challenges we face today.”

Julie Delcourt
CHIEF GROWTH OFFICER
Singapore

“For the past 10 years I’ve been thinking exponential growth with limited efforts using digital tools. Regarding the AEC Industry, I’ve found that construction technology, AI and Big Data analytics are the three biggest disruptors. But at Digital Blue Foam, we believe they are useful for 3 main reasons: to facilitate analysis of complex information, to enable rapid prototyping and testing with customers and to make information more accessible. That's what we work very hard on every day.”

Rutvik Deshpande
DATA ENGINEER
India

“When I started with data science and machine learning more than a year ago, I was unsure how to apply it to the architecture industry, because each design has a different end goal or an output. It is very difficult to correlate different design features and generalize the results with available datasets. Many architects and design professionals think AI will replace their role in the future, which is not true at the moment, AI will assist and enhance designers' intuition and help them design better buildings and cities. Maybe AI is not going to generate or predict the final design which is aesthetic and functional, but it will definitely help and improve the design process. I have started to work in the industry with the mindset of solving problems with the available technology.”

Rishan
SOFTWARE ENGINEER
Sri Lanka

“I am a full stack software developer and I recently joined Digital Blue Foam. I am still new to the AEC domain and lack of domain knowledge is a big challenge for me. My goal is to contribute to the amazing work the team is already doing and make the product better by using my programming skills.”


Lakshan Pinto
SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER
Sri Lanka

“Business domain knowledge helps a lot when you are designing, developing software applications. One of the biggest challenges in my career was not having enough knowledge on the business domain when I was responsible as a senior developer for planning the software applications. My previous employer was providing IT services for the Banking and Telecommunication domains. And here at Digital Blue Foam we are working on the AEC domain. I was frustrated at the beginning but later understood, It is really hard to be good at all these domains as a software engineer. It was the collaborative effort that we put together with domain experts, developers within the company that overcame those challenges and finally brought huge success to all these software products."

Maciej Nisztuk
DESIGN COMPUTATION ENGINEER
Poland

“When I started my career as an architect, pencil and drawing board were still the leading design tools. The goal of every design process is to create an ergonomic, aesthetic and friendly object that meets the needs of the user and the contexts of its existence. This iterative and analytical process is a repetitive verification of multiple design solutions. I believe that computational design can complement the human decision-making process and significantly improve design quality. That’s why I create tools that allow the use of this technology to anyone who chooses to use it.”

Chamal Perera
SOFTWARE ENGINEER
Sri Lanka

“Coming from a computer science background, when I recently started working as a developer for a software development company that develops tools for the architectural domain, lack of knowledge in domain and terminology was a huge challenge. 

Now that I have spent a couple of months in the field, I can see that stakeholders put so much effort into designing even a small building considering many factors in the process. Our challenge is to find out how we can make their life easier by providing the necessary tools.”


Naomi Bachtiar
COMPUTATIONAL BIM MANAGER
Singapore

"At the heart of it, designers are problem solvers. We look at how things are built and think of ways in which they can be improved. Taking a step back, I believe that the greatest contribution we can bring is to rethink the way in which we design. My Architecture background gives me insights into design workflows and methodologies. I choose to use this knowledge to identify the gaps and opportunities where we can leverage technology to improve the way we do things."

Supun Tharindu
SOFTWARE ENGINEER
Sri Lanka

“Using computer science to solve advanced architectural and design problems provides perfect solutions for today's world. As a software engineer, I discovered a passion for DBF products. We are working hard with our incredible team to improve our product by following best practices and the latest technologies.”

Miriam Corcuera
UX / UI DESIGNER
Barcelone

“UX/UI design and architecture have very similar processes. Both involve research, sketching, identifying needs, and many iterations to design solutions that satisfy the user. That's why my 3 years of experience in architecture made it easy to transition to my current position as UX/UI Designer in DBF. I am very enthusiastic about collaborating on the industry digital transition with DBF. We want to improve architects workflows and solve their problems through easy,  fun and appealing tools ”