The evolution of the built environment.

Take the built environment from Caveman to Robocop!

Sounds extreme but bear with me

The built environment has been managed the same for a number of years now.

How businesses have used their offices has changed over the years (more notably in recent times), but the drivers are often purely ‘how do we save costs? Or how do we improve efficiency?’

Well, what if there was a way to bring the management of your building into 2028?

The year Robocop was set in. ??

I hear you cry ‘WHAT HAS ROBOCOP GOT TO DO WITH MY BUILDING?’

Consider who Robocop was before he was the Cyborg, we (ok maybe I) grew to love.

Just a normal Joe, good guy, family man and good cop. He was going about his work like many in the police force at that time, bringing down bad guys.

It’s only after a potential life ending attack, he undergoes life changing surgery to become, half man half machine.

Bit like our built environments today, many of our housing stock and office environments are managed re-actively or planned in some way, like the good building should.

If it breaks fix it, and even if it’s not broken let’s replace a part because it’s on the schedule.

What if you turned your building into Cyborg?

You go from a normal working Joe to a highly efficient digitalised space.

Like the view through Robocop’s eyes, scanning the environment for

·??????Faults BEFORE they happen

·??????Changes that IMPROVE the user’s experience

·??????DECREASE expenditure

·??????INCREASE asset value

Have I sold the idea yet?

The metaphor maybe a little extreme but it is possible.

We have to lose the mental shackles which keep us chained to what we’ve always done, and embrace what technology has to offer.

Like ages through time, each usurping the last, we need to adapt to the change.

We’ve had the industrial revolution now it’s the age of the Digital Twin

If you’ve not heard the phrase before a Digital Twin is a virtual version of your built environment, very much like an MRI Scan but of your building.

With the use of sensors, we’re able to scan and take readings in real time.

This provides us with Data, this is at the core of what a Digital Twin is about, Data, true and uncompromising data.

Once we have this Data, we need to know how to read it.

This is so much more than a PDF of a physical document; this Data must be turned into Information.

Information is the sequence of readings that are received, which in true paints a picture for us. What’s a safe reading? What’s an unsafe reading?

It’s with this information that the final piece of the puzzle is created, Action.

What action or actions need to be considered to achieve a desired result?

If meetings are peaking at 10am, but space is only at 50% capacity and staff are unhappy about availability, then something needs to happen here.

Is the comfort of other meeting rooms a problem at certain times of the day? Could something be done here to improve this?

All actions which come from the gathering of data, turned into readable information to drive action.

This is your Digital Twin; this is your building cyborg.

The benefits of knowing your built environment better are not just an exercise in staff retention, but a driving force for good.

Energy consumption, net zero targets and ESG goals all follow once we truly know what’s happening in our spaces, how they are being used, how they can be optimised and what actions can be taken to make sure performance is improved in the future.?

If you were to make an investment in anything you’d make sure it had a high if not guaranteed return.

So why do we gamble when it comes to our built environments?

Why are we estimating or making huge allowances for potential risk when the Risk Management could be mitigated by knowing for sure what will happen, foreseeing the future.

Leaks, breaks, mistakes, and disasters all happen, but if we can find exactly where the fault is exactly and can rectify it quickly (or quicker), we now can add the reduction of downtime to the list of benefits! Add this to the fact that now we have a live feed to suppliers of parts, so we know lead times, we know when parts will break and can order well in advance meaning engineers have the part in stock to fit when needed.

The costs of running a building have always astounded me. Some requiring hundreds of thousands of pounds to run per week. This is not uncommon and factored in when compiling a business case for a building, but what about the ‘unknown’ costs?

If you know every square inch / meter of your building, the materials required and the exact amounts, we’re now no longer estimating right? This is smart pricing, using the data to inform us on what is really happening and what is really required.

You may have heard of digital twins before or you may not have, these have (depending on what industry) been given a number of names, but what they all hold is a ‘Golden Thread’ or ‘Single Source of Truth’.

A place to go to where the data and information is uncompromised by human interpretation or influence, in many cases it’s not an original concept. BMSs (building management system) have been doing a lot of this already but it’s been siloed, kept in the basement with the plant equipment.

It is now that this becomes part of the fabric of our built environments, as expressed in the Gemini Principles found here https://www.cdbb.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/TheGeminiPrinciples.pdf

A national paper released where the Government has set out a clear vision and strong agenda to transform the way we deliver, operate and use our built assets by harnessing the power of digital technology, data capture, and analytics. This is being delivered via the Industrial Strategy Transforming Construction Programme and the creation of the Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) at the University of Cambridge.

That this information management and feedback becomes part of a national fabric, where global concerns like NetZero and Carbon Emissions can be truly measured and ESG goals reached.

It’ll take time for these things to truly take hold and become mainstream, but for many this is a reality for now.

If you’re in Social Housing this needs to be on your radar

If you managed hospitals, then this has to be considered mission critical

If you’re a large corporate with large real estate, then this is the future of estate strategy.

It only leaves the question of ‘why wait?’

Expenditure and cost are of course a primary factor in implementing a digital twin,

So why not start with a few questions

Confirm the Vision

Define the strategic objectives, vision, and user experience for the space. At this point you should prioritise high level objectives across human experience, space optimisation, sustainability and well-being.

Define Functionality

Once the value and benefits you want to target are understood, the next step is to identify and list the practical uses that will deliver on them.

Digital Benchmarking

Consider what the wider market is doing, benchmark uses and build your business case. You should establish a baseline for your technology solution.

If a Digital Twin is part of your plans then I'd welcome a chat, not new thinking but something we need to seriously consider for the good of mankind and it's planet.