Building Our Future: Recent Episodes
Bert Broadhead
Bert Broadhead & guests explore developing themes in innovation, technology & futurology in real estate and the built environment.
How can IoT integrations help manage infection control in the built environment?
Tim is CTO of Microshare, creating smart facilities solutions for the built environment. He is in charge of the strategic product vision and his past 12mths have unsurprisingly been focussed on harnessing the power of technology to help buildings be more resilient in the face of the pandemic.
In this podcast:
- How has Covid-19 shaped the direction of smart facilities management?
- How has Covid-19 affected take of of smart building products?
- What lessons can we learn from managing buildings in the past 12mths
- Will consumer data-privacy concerns become more flexible in a post-Covid environment?
Andrew’s recommended reading is Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, a science fiction book which takes a radical view of when real estate might look like in a plausible future.
Tim is excited by the potential of end-user apps, such as Waze, allowing humans to use data to improve their own lives in a manageable well by making better informed decisions in various facets of life.
His favourite building is Building 10 of the Maclaurin Buildings by William Welles Bosworth, 1916 (the Great Dome of MIT), a neo-classical bedrock of classical learning, intertwined with newness and discovery.
How do we design buildings and places with wellness in mind? Do we need to reconsider residential design to reflect changing life priorities?
Andrew Mcmullan is a British architect whose fresh and optimistic approach to design has helped create renowned global projects that make a deep impact on places and people. In 2018, he founded Mcmullan Studio to evolve his positive vision of architecture. Based in London, Andrew leads his team to create beautiful, buildable projects for progressive clients who recognise the capacity of original design to transform people’s lives.
In this podcast:
- How do we define “wellness” and how can it be integrated into design?
- How are emerging wellness themes changing our expectations from how we interact with our buildings and built environment?
- How do you masterplan for a civic area where there are so many integral stakeholders?
- Can better quality affordable rural housing keep younger people in rural communities?
- How are expectations shifting towards generational housing and has the Covid-19 crisis accelerated these trends?
You can find out more about Andrew’s projects here:
- Masterplan for Innbruck’s Knowledge Quarter
- Regeneration plans for Skipton
- Plans for the M&G garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show
- Designs for affordable rural homes for young people
Andrew’s recommended reading is Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Cartmull, a driving influence on Andrew’s though process when establishing his practice and ways of working.
His favourite building is Royal Festival Hall for the way in which it captured the spirit of the age at the time. His technology to watch out for is wearable devices and the ability to use the data which they collect to better adapt buildings to how we use them.
Martha Weidmann is CEO and Co-Founder of Nine Dot Arts in Denver, Colorado. Nine Dot Arts is a consulting firm that not only curates inspirational art experiences, but also serves as an advocate for both art and artists.
In this podcast:
- What’s driving the renaissance of the use of art in the built environment?
- What are the benefits of art for spaces, places and buildings?
- What mediums of art are being used?
- How are arts projects generally funded?
- How important is ROI of art and how can it be tracked?
- Do art installations need to be permanent?
- How do you develop an art strategy for a place or building?
- How is art sourced?
Martha references Rainbow Militia’s adaptation to performance in a post-Covid world. You can read more about their innovative use of a 1900s bungalow here.
Martha’s favourite building is Fort Gaines, Alabama.
Her recommended book isThe Best Place to Work; The Art & Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace, Ron Friedman; a book that has shaped the building of the Nine Dot Arts business.
Her technology to watch out for is AI in respect of its ability to create and identify curators and transform them into super-curators.
nnovation; everyone wants it but how can we help create it through urban and building design?
Katie Kasabilis is an urbanist, architect and educator whose career has straddled the worlds of practice and academia. She is currently an assistant professor in architecture at the University of Virginia, a Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE Cities and the Design Director of Kasawoo.
Her work is at the forefront of a new direction for urban research – one that investigates the role of technological innovation in guiding models of future development. Her current research investigates the evolution of the workplace under the pressures of today’s knowledge economy.
In this podcast:
- Innovation as a primary factor in building design for leading occupiers
- The best examples of buildings and districts that foster innovation
- Is design alone enough for innovation to flourish?
- Are tech campuses the blueprint for large scale urban planning and design?
- Has Covid-19 changed the direction of travel or just accelerated pre-existing trends?
- Is this the end of boom of urbanisation as we’ve known it?
- Will transport still be key to defining places?
Katie’s favourite building is the Kolumba art museum in Cologne, a building which left an indelible memory.
Her recommended book isThe Life & Death of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs; a book as relevant now as it was when first published in 1961.
Her technology to watch out for in machine learning with its range of possibilities; from intuitive design though to asset valuations.
What are “smart” buildings & how will they change the way we design, build and use our built environment?
Pradyumna Pandit is the Vice President UK & Ireland of Digital Energy, a at Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management and automation. He previously worked at Honeywell for 18 years where he held roles in Asia, the Americas and EMEA.
In this podcast:
- What’s driving the growing interest in smart(er) buildings?
- What’s Schneider Electric’s role been to date and where does it see the future?
- Can buildings be retrofitted as “smart”?
- Who’s responsible for the technology within buildings - owners or occupiers?
- What are the keys to a successful digital building strategy?
- How to Digital Twins and BIM fit into the smart building agenda?
Pradyumna’s favourite building is Land Sec’s 80 Victoria Street at Cardinal Place, London HQ of Schneider Electric and showcase for their digital implementation strategies.
His recommended book is Managing Oneself, Peter F. Drucker
His technology to watch out for is the digital twin; when used from conception of the building through to the full life cycle of the asset.
Nicholas Boys-Smith left a job in banking to set up Create Streets, a research institute that supports "community-led regeneration" and prioritises high-density, low-rise buildings over tower blocks. He is a Commissioner of Historic England, a senior research fellow at the University of Buckingham, a Fellow at the Legatum Institute and an Academician of the Academy of Urbanism.
In this podcast:
- Why are beautiful buildings important?
- How do we measure beauty in the built environment?
- What are the key findings from the UK government-commissioned report: “Living with Beauty” , to help deliver heath, well-being and sustainable growth to developments?
- What role do bureaucratic frameworks play in creating better places, not just more places?
- Does technology have a role is building beautiful?
- Is a mass-tree planting movement a good idea, in the context of better urban design?
Nicholas’s favourite place is Gold Hill in Shaftesbury; made famous by Hovis but loved for its statement of design overcoming seemingly impossible natural challenges.
His recommended book is Mental Health and the Built Environment: More Than Bricks And Mortar?, David Halpern
His technology to watch out for is modular building for its potential to bring back craftsmanship and individuality into building and design.
How can we navigate technology’s impact on the world’s largest asset class?
Dror Poleg is the author of Rethinking Real Estate and the Co-Chair of the Urban Land Institute’s Technology and Innovation Council in New York. He is a former real estate and technology executive who now dedicates most of his time to researching the impact of technology on urban life and the way physical assets are designed, used, and valued.
Dror advises executives across the real estate universe on emerging business models and consumer behaviors. His clients include multi-billion dollar companies such as AvalonBay Communities, British Land, Dubai Holding, and Cushman & Wakefield, industry organisations such as the National Multifamily Housing Council, NAIOP, EPRA, and INREV, as well as venture-backed startups such as Breather, Bumblebee Spaces, and Carson.
In this podcast:
- How is the real estate model changing?
- How does this shift fit in with wider macro economic trends?
- What opportunities does technology bring to those working in real estate?
- Who will be the winners and losers in the the future built environment?
- What kind of decisions should real estate businesses be making now in order to thrive in the future?
Dror’s recommended books are anything by either Michael Parker or Clay Christensen:
For his favourite building, Dror picks Haussmann’s vision of Paris.
Dror’s technology / innovation to watch is WeWork. This pick is made post-IPO drama and on the basis that there is more to come in terms of the effect the business will have on the way in which real estate is operated.
Can real estate development deliver social justice?
Andrea Pizziconi is a singer, songwriter and social entrepreneur. She is the founder of the Christie Company (a pioneer in affordable, mixed-use developments) and of Africa Integras (financier of education infrastructure in Africa) as well as the co-founder of Compositions for a Cause, which creates cause-related music to inspire activism for social justice.
In this podcast:
- Educational infrastructure & real estate as a catalyst for regeneration
- Funding with social capital - how to do it
- Is private capital the answer to social issues?
- The impact of building design on learning faculties and the role that taking care of other social needs plays
- Looking beyond student housing when it come to educational real estate investment
- Combining careers in music and real estate
Andrea’s recommended books are:
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
- Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Robert A. Caro
Her favourite buildings are:
- The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry for its visual impact at sunset
- The Dancing House Building in Prague (also known as Fred & Ginger), also designed by Frank Gehry
- The World Financial Center, New York, designed by Cesár Pelli, where the glass is designed to perfectly mirror the changing colours of the sky
Andrea’s technology to watch out for is those that can empower the end user of the built environment. Her company, Girls First Finance, is certainly one to watch in this regard.
Breaking down the barriers: the built environment in a post-digital world where sectors, silos and boundaries are increasingly blurred.
Vanessa Hale is Director of Research at BNP Paribas Real Estate and brand-new, and youngest ever, chair of ULI UK.
Vanessa has 20 years of experience in global strategic research across all real estate sectors in the UK and the US.
In this podcast:
- The breakdown of traditional real estate “sectors” and boundaries
- The role of technology in changing how we use buildings
- The rising power of social value in real estate investing
- Expanding the horizons of those working in the build environment
- How to re-skill in a world of operational real estate
- The changing face of later-living
- Attracting talent to the real estate industry
- The future of the ULI and how to get involved
Vanessa’s recommended book is Good to Great, Jim Collins.
Her favourite building is the Monadnock building in Chicago for its role in driving innovation in building upwards during the late 19th century.
Vanessa’s emerging theme to watch out for is the role of public data in so far as how it interacts with the built environment; who will own it and how will it be used?
Can P2P lending boost housing delivery numbers by financially enabling SME house-builders? What does the P2P market need to learn from recent history to ensure a fair & transparent market of risk / reward for investors? Is technology the right answer?
Mike Bristow is CEO & Co-founder of CrowdProperty; a specialist property peer-to-peer lending platform facilitating loans between private individuals and UK professional property businesses. Lending is focused on the SME property developer market, a key segment for supplying much needed UK housing stock, which Mike believes poorly and inefficiently served by traditional funding sources.
In this podcast:
- How did CrowdProperty come about and how does it differentiate itself from its peers?
- Why is P2P suited to the SME property developer market?
- Has the collapse of ‘mainstream’ P2P business (e.g. Lendy) impacted business?
- How does the CrowdProperty model harness traditional & tech skills to deliver its service?
- How much further has P2P got to go in respect of the built environment
Mike’s favourite building is St Pancras. His recommended book is Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion, Robert Cialdini & Steve Martin, encompassing 50 chapters of studies to ethically influence the human brain. Mike’s technology to keep an eye on is AskPorter; leveraging tech and AI to make human-resource intense management of buildings more efficient.
What is the great rotation and how will it affect the built environment in the years to come?
Indy Johar is an architect, co-founder of Project 00 & Dark Matter Labs and Senior Innovation Associate at the Young Foundation.
Dark Matter Labs is a field laboratory focused on radically redesigning the bureaucratic & institutional infrastructure of our cities, regions and towns for a more democratic, distributed great transition.
Project 00 is a collaborative studio of architects, strategic designers, programmers, social scientists, economists and urban designers practising design beyond its traditional borders. Through 00, Indy has led on multiple social ventures from Impact Hub Westminster to Impact Hub Birmingham to HubLaunchpad.net; he has also co-led research projects such as The Compendium for the Civic Economy, whilst supporting several 00 explorations/experiments including the wikihouse.cc, opendesk.cc. He is now leading 00 on HubEng.in a development engine for a next generation of Impact Hubs.
Indy is a Director of Data Science London, an Advisor to the Earth Security Initiative and a non-executive director of WikiHouse Foundation. He is a regular writer on Medium.com and speaker at Ted Talks.
In this podcast:
- How is real estate connected to ideas like political polarisation, climate change and conscious consumerism?
- The great rotation of capital - what role does the built environment have to play?
- Should assets be based on productive utility rather than floor area?
- What alternative finance & capital forms are emerging in the built environment?
- Have we yet seen truly transformative technologies in the build environment?
Indy’s recommended book for the BUilding Our Future reading list is:
Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society, Eric A. Posner
Indy’s favourite building more of moment; in terms of the feelings emoted by walking through Manhattan, New York. His technology to watch is smart property rights.
Can technology help the built environment better reflect people’s changing social and ethical consumption choices?
Ben is an economist, environmentalist and social entrepreneur. He has founded several businesses and charities, and worked for 6 years at the New Zealand Treasury - where he led the development of the Living Standards Framework. He co-founded CoGo while working at the New Zealand Treasury, and has grown the social enterprise to a thriving New Zealand movement with over 20,000 consumer members and 500 business customers.
Ben’s vision is a world where consumers and businesses work together for the good of people and the planet. Ben has recently moved to London with his wife and two children, to launch the platform in the UK.
In this podcast:
- How does CoGo work?
- Will people be happy to share banking data if it leads to social change?
- How can retail be changed by understanding the customer’s ethical prerogatives?
- How deep-rooted is the trend of conscious consumerism - what are people prepared to do to uphold these beliefs?
- Will a kite mark emerge for bench-marking & assessing the social values of buildings?
For his favourite building, Ben selects his self-build, straw-bale eco-house in New Zealand.
Ben prefers listening to podcasts than reading books so rather than adding to theBuilding Our Future reading list, his recommended podcast is The Environmental Economist.
Ben’s innovative technology to watch out for is the data collection and collation. Data is the building blocks of insight and those who are best at gathering it, will have access to the best analysis and ability to change things.
How can well-designed landscape & public realm help create better cities for people?
Alexandra is a chartered landscape architect in the UK, and also worked for a number of years in Canada where she was responsible for a series of innovative public realm projects for the City of Vancouver.
In 2013, Alexandra founded URBAN with the stated aim of creating better cities for people through a synthesis of art, landscape and sustainability.
Before starting her own practice, Alexandra led the Aecom Europe Design Team, and was also Practice Director for Martha Schwartz Partners’ London office. Aside from her work with URBAN, Alexandra acts as a Built Environment Expert for Design Council Cabe, and sits on the Highways England Design Panel. She lectures at architectural schools, conferences and is a reviewer at universities including Harvard and The Bartlett, UCL.
In this podcast:
- Is the role & remit of landscape architecture misunderstood?
- How can you demonstrate ROI in landscape and public realm?
- What should good landscape seek to achieve?
- Does ownership impact on public realm and how can this be overcome?
- How is landscaping used as a medium for regeneration?
- Where in the world is landscaping most difficult & what can be learned from this?
- What role does future-proofing & innovations such as autonomous vehicles play in influencing the shape of the urban architecture?
For her favourite building, Alexandra selects Quai Brandley by Jean Novel & Patrick Blanc for its seamless integration between building and landscape.
The recommended addition to theBuilding Our Future reading list is:
- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
Alexandra’s technology to watch for is autonomous vehicles and its potential impact on the ways that cities are designed and in which people move.
Charlie Wade is UK Managing director of PropTech giant, VTS. In their own words, VTS is the commercial real estate industry’s leading leasing and asset management platform. Landlords use VTS to maximise portfolio performance by transforming their leasing and asset management process and unlocking real-time insights – enabling them to convert leads to leases faster than ever before, and build informed data-led strategies. Brokers can manage their deal pipeline and get tenants into empty spaces faster, collaborate across teams and work easily with their landlord clients using VTS for Brokers.
Beyond his role at VTS, Charlie’s an influential figure in promoting technology within the property industry and has a background firmly rooted in the traditional industry.
In this podcast:
- Life as a unicorn; how did it happen and what comes next?
- Data gathering to big data insight; are we on the cusp of an analytical revolution?
- Tech first mover advantage; is there room for 2nd place in PropTech?
- Democracy and data; is value derived for SaaS or the data that is collected as a result?
- Where is the real estate market on is journey of technology adoption?
For his favourite building, Charlie selects the somewhat vague historic London; from Pall Mall to Westminster.
The recommended addition to theBuilding Our Future reading list is:
- Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm
- Matthew Dixon, The Challenger Sale
Charlies technology to watch for is sensor-led technology, influencing design and usage of buildings to influence the future of the workplace.
You can find & follow Charlie on social media via Twitter for further information.
Is there really a Retail Apocalypse? Why is the retail industry in the state its in and how can property owners help to rebuild towards a brighter retail future?
Mark Pilkington is author of the newly-released book, Retail Therapy: why the industry is broken and what can be done to fix it.Mark has enjoyed a successful and varied career in retail. After graduating from INSEAD, he joined Cortaulds, later becoming CEO of Gossard where he was responsible for initiating the huge global success of the Wonderbra.
He then founded Splendour.com, the world’s first direct-to-consumer commerce brand, with the backing of Marks & Spencer. Subsequently, he was CEO of KOJ Group, a leading retailer with 850 stores across the middle east and north Africa. Currently, he is director of MarkPilkington.net, providing strategic advice to brands and retailers
In this podcast:
- Is Retail Apocalypse a hyperbolic way to describe the state of the industry?
- Can we better understand the future of the industry by really learning how it has reached its current state?
- How can the physical store compete in the digital world?
- How, in Mark’s view of the new retail paradigm, physical stores can be a key advantage for even direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands
For his favourite building, Mark opts for a slightly wider view in Haussmann’s vision of Paris, including the view down the Champs Elyseé, for its role as a work of art.
The recommended addition to theBuilding Our Future reading list is:
- Tony Robbins, Awaken The Giant Within
Mark’s emerging technology to keep an eye on is the emergence of 3D printing as a conduit for providing mass consumer customisation at-scale.
You can find & follow Mark on social media via Twitter for further information.
Can technology nurture greater community engagement in the shape of develop projects and will this help “democratise” real estate?
My guest today is Savannah de Savary, founder and CEO of Built-ID; a prop-tech platform that “showcases the built environment projects of today and transforms community engagement to better shape the projects of tomorrow”. Built-ID connects architects and consultants with potential clients on an online hub which has been described as the Shazam of property.
After graduating from the University of Oxford in 2013, Savannah joined Thor Equities before founding Built-ID in 2015. Savanah has won “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” at the Property Awards, was voted in Property Week’s ‘Power 100: Top 20 Ones to Watch’ and as one of the Top 20 Proptech influencers in a poll by the UK Proptech Association. She is also a regular columnist for Property Week and sits on the Legacy Foundation Board of Trustees and the ULI Young Leaders and Urban Art Forums.
In this podcast:
- The origins of Built-ID and problem that Savannah set out to solve
- The consequences of amassing a photos library of building interiors and exteriors in excess of 250,000 images - what happens next?
- “Give My View” - Built-ID’s innovation to bring more people into development consultancy process; how does it work?
- What is democracy in the context of the built environment?
- What are the developer’s responsibilities in respect to the local community?
- What emerging building trends can Built-ID help identify?
Understandably given the designs she encounters in her job, Savannah has too many favourite buildings to choose a specific one but Bloomberg’s London HQ was the first building that sprung to mind!
The recommended addition to theBuilding Our Future reading list is:
- Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things
You can find & follow Savannah on social media via Twitter for further information.
Building communities at the scale needed to meet the challenges of the UK’s housing shortage.
In 2018, Fiona Fletcher-Smith left City Hall (where she was Executive Director of Development, Enterprise and Environment) to join L&Q where she is Group Director of Development and Sales, responsible for delivering the Registered Provider’s stated aim of constructing 100,000 new homes in the next decade.
One of L&Q’s flagship projects is Barking Riverside, an 443 acre site where the vision is to create a brand-new riverfront town in East London and deliver a thriving, new eco-district comprising: 10,800 homes, new schools, commercial and cultural offerings, along 2km of Thames river frontage.
In this podcast:
- What are the growth plans for London largest property owner?
- How does L&Q role as a long-term owner of assets influence planning and design?
- What is the approach for designing new urban settlements, as at Barking Riverside?
- How can you help create communities within development projects?
- How do you manage meanwhile uses in long-term projects?
- How can residents be brought into the discussion about future plans and continual shaping of the project and the masterplan?
Fiona is a huge fan of tall buildings (in the right context) and her choice of favourite building is the Shard for its design and positive impact on the regeneration of the locality. Fiona’s hot pick for innovation in the sector offsite construction.
The recommended addition to theBuilding Our Future reading list tackles collaboration in problem-solving, which is:
- Matthew Syed, Black Box Thinking: Marginal Gains and the Secrets of High Performance: The Surprising Truth About Success
One man’s mission to live in painted cities; how can street art transform both buildings and communities?
Holding a PhD in Evolutionary Mathematics from Cambridge, Lee was a former break-dancer with the Soul Mavericks Crew where he represented the UK and he has travelled the world extensively documenting street art world-wide.
In 2012, he co-founded Global Street Art with a mission to live in painted cities. This is achieved in three ways:
- Curating the world’s largest online street art platform with artists from over 100 countries and hundreds of thousands of photographs and over half a million followers on social media;
- Organising legal street art murals; having organised over 2,000 since 2012;
- Forming an agency that works on commercial projects.
In this podcast:
- What is street art and how is it already shaping our cities?
- What role does art have in helping to create vibrant communities?
- How are brands helping to fund the growth of street art?
- How does street art retain authenticity as it enters a new, “legal” era?
- Is street art designed to challenge communities or represent them?
- Can we measure the impact of street art on a location?
Lee’s favourite building is the Schindler House in West Holywood; an experiment in 1920’s social architecture and arguably an early forbear of the current trend of co-living. His hot pick for innovation in the sector is Gyana AI, focused on retail analytics.
The recommended addition to theBuilding Our Future reading list is:
- Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect: what elephants and epidemics can teach us about innovation
You can find & follow Lee and Global Street Art on social media via Instagram or Twitter for further information.
Image courtesy of Tony Briggs (http://www.tonybriggs.com/_photo_15181401.html)
What is Artificial Intelligence and how is about to reshape our approach to work? Will this mean that SpaceAsaService becomes the new normal for the build environment?
Antony is a renowned speaker in the property world and a globally recognised expert on PropTech, Artificial Intelligence & SpaceAsaService. A pre-eminent blogger in the world of AI, he’s recently been voted as the number one non-US person to follow on Twitter. Having founded several PropTech companies, he still retains an active role in them and recently founded PropAI.
In this podcast:
- Where do we stand on the PropTech journey?
- What actually is AI and how can we expect it to affect the built environment?
- Are there tangible examples of AI at work already in real estate?
- Why is AI suddenly at the forefront of everyone’s minds?
- How can business embrace AI to stay relevant in the digital age?
- Is AI a threat to jobs in the built environment? How can we stay relevant as individuals?
- Is SpaceAsaService the natural consequence of AI?
- Why are we about to enter a “Golden Age of Real Estate”?
Antony’s favourite building is Giotto’s Campanile in Florence as an “insanely elegant” structure. His hot pick for innovation in the sector is Gyana AI, focused on retail analytics.
The recommended additions to the newly formed Building Our Future reading list are:
- Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age: work, progress and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies
- Hannah Fry, Hello World; How to be Human in the Age of the Machine
You can find & follow Antony on social media via LinkedIn or Twitter (@antonyslumbers) or see his blog for further information.
Do we give enough thought to the impact that the design and layout of our workplaces has on our individual & collective productivity & well-being? I delve into the world of workspace science to find the answers.
Ros Pomeroy is a co-founder of Brainy Birdz; a consultancy specialising in the unpronounceable (for me, anyway) ‘zusammenarbeit’ - that’s to say, how people work together. Together with co-founder Dr Kerstin Sailer, Ros is at the forefront of using data to help diagnose what makes a workplace tick and what role design plays in this.
In this podcast:
- What is workspace science and who should it be of interest to?
- How is design enabling the growth in co-working that we’re seeing?
- How can seating & proximity plans be optimised to bust silos in the office & bring people together?
- What’s the importance of visibility within the work place?
- Why are open-plan offices getting such a hard time of late?
Ros’s favourite buildings are the new Google Campus & The Francis Crick Institute at Kings Cross for their design-led focus on collaboration & knowledge sharing. Her innovation to follow is the growing trend of data-led decision making across the build environment.
The recommended addition to the newly formed Building Our Future reading list is Neil Usher’s The Elemental Workplace (see here for her review).
You can find & follow Ros on social media via LinkedIn or Twitter (@rosamundpomeroy).
For more references, do have a look at the Brainy Birdz blog. Also, Ros and Kerstin run regular workshops for anyone interested in learning more.
Can we better serve our ageing population through a new model of inter-generational co-living?
Justin Shee is the founder of The Kohab; a new inter-generational retirement living company, bringing old and young adults together under one roof to live in mutual support. The Kohab is both a potential answer to the age ghettos created by retirement living and a solution to the loneliness epidemic faced by both young and old adults in the UK.
In this podcast:
- What’s behind the growing epidemic of loneliness and how can our design and usage of the built environment help to tackle it?
- Why are baby-boomers still reluctant down-sizers & renters? How can this be changed?
- Should we revisit the rationale behind the current status quo of segregated “retirement” / senior living?
- What are the advantages of inter-generational living, both for the residents and the wider society?
- What are the financial models for encouraging the use of inter-generational living and how does The Kohab intend to nurture the identity of the community?
- Can inter-generational living extend to even younger populations e.g. creches?
Justin’s favourite building is Henry VI’s Gothic masterpiece, King’s College Chapel in Cambridge. In terms of real estate innovation, automated valuation models (AVMs) are Justin’s hot topic to watch!
You can find & follow Justin on social media via LinkedIn or Twitter (@JustinShee).
For more references, you can look at:
- Why inter-generational models may be the answer for solving the loneliness epidemic
- How inter-generational living benefits the ‘book-end’ generations
- Living Closer; the many faces of co-housing
- Savannah de Savary’s piece in Property Week on high-tech, collaborative retirement living
Can the application of traditional social sciences to big data help better tailor the future of the built environment to societal needs?
Gemma John is an anthropologist, helping to influence urban planning and development.
After ten years in academic research, Gemma spent five years working for engineering, planning, and architecture firms, including AECOM & Foster + Partners, before establishing her own consultancy business, Human City.
Human City helps property developers to create commercially successful projects, particularly in the co-working & co-living areas. Gemma’s work ranges from advising on new building concepts through to mobile apps. Gemma is currently designing a research project, focusing on the moral economy of housing.
In this podcast:
- How are generational mindset changes impacting our use & design of buildings?
- How does the real estate industry cater to the evolving changes in what the end user really wants or needs?
- Is co-living driven by necessity or desire?
- Exploring benefits of inter-generational co-living and the concept of the Skyler tower
- What can co-working learn from public libraries?
- The role of social sciences in the “big data” world & how to ensure that human interaction remains at the core of built-environment decision-making in an increasingly digitised world.
Gemma’s favourite building is Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal for its blue vibrancy!
Her innovation to watch out for is Vu.City, the provider of interactive, digital city models.
Can technology bridge the service gap between buildings with amenity & space-as-a-service?
Gabrielle McMillan is the founding CEO of Equiem and has led the Equiem business and team from inception in 2011. In her previous role as Director and General Manager of Advance Marketing, Gabrielle oversaw significant business growth (9 x revenue), expansion into New Zealand and the UK and international operations, including 180 staff.
Equiem catalyses communities, using technology to turn commercial spaces into places & helps landlords unlock new value in their assets; assisting them to attract & retain tenants, while increasing revenue. Equiem aims to breathe new life into buildings through: deeper engagement with customers, a smart technology platform and a curated services experience.
In this podcast:
- How does the UK compare globally in the adoption of space-as-a-service?
- Why is the UK behind other countries in this regard?
- How can Equiem help property owners fulfil the service needs of their end customers?
- Is technology an all-encompassing solution for “service”?
- How can you measure ROI of emerging technologies like Equiem?
- Is there a role in the Smart Cities movement for Equiem-style platforms? Will we see towns etc collaborating under similar technology banners?
Gabrielle’s favourite building is the impressive Rialto Towers, Equiem’s first project. Her favourite emerging real-estate related technology is Bluepoint; a UK cloud-based, visitor management system for buildings and a potential solution for a pain point experienced by many occupiers and on-site teams.
Are brand engagement & media overtaking transactions as the primary purpose of bricks-and-mortar retail? Where else in the build environment is brand influencing building design and utility?
Lara Marerro is a Studio Director & Retail Practice Leader at Gensler, the global architectural practice. Rather than specialising in a specific sector, Lara is interested the power brand and how it relates to consumers and built environment.
With an education that spans psychology, advertising, marketing, and cultural anthropology, Lara’s focus is on translating complex global consumer trends into understandable, workable, and profitable outcomes for her clients.
In this podcast:
- How are shopping habits changing & what is the opportunity for retailers & landlords?
- Is the store media or does it still have a role as the location for transactions to take place?
- Is pure-play experiential retail really relevant outside of the prime retail pitches?
- How can independent retailers compete in a brand-oriented, digital landscape?
- How else is brand / the concept of “Tribes” attaching itself to real estate across other asset classes?
Lara’s innovation-to-watch is AppearHere; where she believes the best is still yet to come!
Lara’s favourite building in the Empire State Building for its enduring impact on the Manhattan skyline.
Does the history of the European Real Estate market hold any clues for the direction of the future?
My guest today is Andrea Carpenter, a communications consultant in the property industry, founder & director of this podcast’s partner, the non-profit Women Talk Real Estate, and author of the new book High Rise and Fall: The Making of the Modern Real Estate Industry.
Andrea began her career as a journalist at Property Week before moving on to be editor of EuroProperty. Following this she worked for various organisations, including: Urban Land Institute, INREV and ANREV in Hong Kong. She most recently worked as Head of Marketing and Communications EMEA at CBRE Global Investors.
In this podcast:
- What were driving forces behind the creation of the modern European Real Estate industry?
- What went wrong in 2008?
- Has the investment industry learned it's lessons or is history in danger of rhyming once again?
- How has the way the industry has developed and been funded influenced our built environments?
- What is Women Talk Real Estate? Who is it for and how can people get involved?
Andrea's favourite Real Estate innovation is What3Words which has simplified talking about location by giving every 3x3m grid on earth a unique location code, comprising of 3 words...
This episode is brought to you in partnership with Women Talk Real Estate who connect female real estate professionals with speaking and media opportunities across Europe and provide training for successful stage and media presence.
How can collaboration improve the real estate industry? The view from one of the UK property sector's great generalists on the state of the market and the way ahead...
Susan Freeman is a partner at the law firm Mishcon de Reya. Susan hold a business degree from London Business school and a is well known as a proponent of innovation in real estate. Described by Bisnow as one of the best-connected lawyers in the sector, Susan is one of the most followed real estate twitter users in the UK – you can follow her activity on @propertyshe
Susan is a member of the Mishcon Tech Group, whose MDR LAB runs an incubator programme for legal tech start-ups and she also mentors for Pi Labs PropTech start-up accelerator.
Susan is on the advisory boards of Seaforth Land and Work.Life (please ignore my pronunciation - it's "work life", no dot!) and chairs the new property group at Bee London. She is also a member of the London Chamber of Commerce Property & Construction Committee and has recently been included in Bisnow's 51 Most Influential Women in Real Estate List.
In this podcast:
- How to make Twitter work for you to build networks & gain industry insight
- The importance of collaboration in the real estate industry & whether or not we can over-do it
- Is technology being embraced sufficiently by property companies?
- Assessing the development of the concept of the "ideal" workplace & the race for talent
- Space as a Service
- The future of the retail market
- The benefits of incubating industry tech start-ups
This episode is brought to you in partnership with Women Talk Real Estate, who connect female real estate professionals with speaking and media opportunities across Europe and provide training for successful stage and media presence.
News content & analysis is available in ever-growing quantities. While this can offer huge advantages, it poses several problems; how can you ensure you're accessing the most relevant content for you without being overwhelmed, while also remaining in touch with the latest ideas from various sources.
Matt Partridge, founder of Infabode. Infabode is an online information platform for the global real estate market, connecting its users with companies producing market news and data, through an online platform that users can configure to suits their needs and interests. Since launching in 2016, Infabode now has over 450 companies contributing news, analysis and data for an audience of over 17,000.
Matt & I discuss the opportunities presented by customisation of news, data and analysis and how to avoid the pitfall of data overload.
The next steps for content provision in the industry, as seen by Matt are implementing AI to use news more intuitively (e.g. by geo-tagging news stories so they become searchable by location) and integration within other Proptech platforms, such as Infabode's collaborations with Realla & Coyote.
We discuss the value of data and how it may be monetised in the future. Is the value in the data or the ability to interpret it?
While real estate may seem an unlikely target for fake-news, content providers will likely be judged on their ability to verify their content and Matt discusses Infabode's approach to dealing with this.
As e-commerce continues to disrupt bricks-and-mortar retail, the story of the retail apocalypse or death of the high street has been mainstream news and this isn’t a phenomenon unique to the UK. I talk to Mark Robinson of Ellandi to see if we can find out: a) whether the situation is as dire as it is presented and b) what is the future of mainstream retail (i.e. everyday shopping, as opposed to destination retail).
Mark founded Ellandi in 2008 and it is now now the UK’s leading investment manager of Community Shopping Centres. Mark is president elect of REVO, the retail property industry body, and one of the more outspoken commentators in the sector.
We start by discussing the categorisation of shopping centres and the polarisation towards either destination or convenience centres, versus the traditional (and probably defunct) prime & secondary definitions.
Interestingly, we soon hit on the concept of community - a running theme in recent episodes – and its importance in creating a sense of purpose and identity for local centres. In the traditional categorisations of shopping centres, there’s no appreciation for this idea and yet, this is clearly an increasingly critical driver of footfall and thus retail performance. Mark’s centres have created data to prove this point out.
Mark’s view (and he’s not alone) is that the retail apocalypse is over-stated; what we’re seeing is the death of poor concepts and badly managed operations. He uses the current example of Poundland as a case-in-point. That is not to say that the sector is not entering a period of profound change; just that some retailers are adapting better than others. Of course, this applies equally to property owners; those who aren’t capable of adapting their own business models in-step with their more forward-thinking tenants are going to struggle and will probably add to the problem.
So, who should be sorting out our struggling town centres out? I think our conclusion is that it’s situation dependent. Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s public or private-sector led, the importance is driving ideas of collaboration (both between landlord-tenant and landlord-local authority & other stakeholders), innovation and community. To this end, the argument as to whether or not Local Authorities should be using their access to the Public Works Loan Board to fund town centre regeneration becomes moot; the key is that they’re using the funds to invest in their own built environments, rather than speculating in the wider asset class.
Cripplingly high & out-dated business rates, upward only reviews and misuse of the CVA process are all other complex problems facing property owners and retailers at present. We try our best to cover as many areas as possible and see w
At the heart of Space-as-a-Service is the concept of community; an intangible benefit that extends beyond functional service provision and which will ultimately lead to customer happiness and therefore potentially higher retention rates and ultimately returns for investors.
Ed Thomas views the central ethos of co-living as bringing community back into the heart of the home. When he joined Reza Merchant's The Collective in 2016, he was tasked with exactly that; creating a sense of community within the pioneering 546 bed, co-living development in Old Oak, West London.
Ed believes that strong communities equate to happy members at The Collective, a belief founded in the fundamental principles of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. After shelter and security, humans next need relationships to thrive. For the individual, the benefits of community range from improved wellness, greater avenues of entertainment, networking opportunities, shared learning experiences and, perhaps most importantly (in a city where 60% of 18-35 year olds report feeling lonely), less loneliness. Ed believes that technological changes have altered our relationship-building patterns in a way which places a greater-than-ever importance on "real" communities in big cities.
For the property owner / developer / manager, meeting this most basic of human needs can lead to higher occupancy rates and rents and higher retention rates, as well as an array of cross-benefits across mixed-use sites.
In our interview, Ed explains how he's used a mixture of intricate building design and planning, combined with technology and, most importantly, human direction to help build community at The Collective, Old Oak. He explains the importance of enabling communities to self-develop rather than trying to force anything on members within the development. This needs to be done within a framework of rules, however, to ensure that all members are pulling their weight equally - the skill lies in being able to navigate the path between facilitating and pushing ideas on community members. Apple's concept of Fearless Feedback is an integral part of Ed's ability to adapt seamlessly to his members evolving needs and demands - communities are fluid concepts and there's no one-size solution.
We discuss the role technology can play in helping both owners and customers build communities, as well as the issues that technology is bringing to individuals as they seek to build relationships in new cities or environments.
Finally, Ed gives his thoughts on the emergence of co-living as a sector, the direction of travel for The Collective and emergence of competition to the brand.
Ed's favourite building is The Collective, Old Oak - unsurprising when you hear the thought he's put into it! His favourite innovation is The Collective's Library of Things; the embodiment of the shared-economy / community ethos through a tech-enabled solution.
Dr Shain Shapiro is founder and CEO of Sound Diplomacy, bridging the gap between music and the world of policy and urban planning.
Sound Diplomacy is the leader of the Music Cities movement, which sees culture built into the urban environment through an integrated music policy.
Music is a universal language. While we all have individual tastes and preferences, it's an experience common to everyone. It can aid with early development, rehabilitation and healthy ageing. It's personal benefits are therefore indisputable.
A well curated and executed music policy can help attract & retain capital and talent, help build the nigh-time economy and improve tourism. Shain argues that Music Cities need more than just a a policy though; they need someone to promote the cause within the local authority to ensure that it is being thought about & that policy is being enacted. The efficacy of this can be seen in London; Shain believes that the decline of 35-40% of music venues in the capital over the past decade has been halted, (at least in part) due to the appointment of the Mayor's night-czar, Amy Lamé.
For developers, music is yet another piece in the puzzle of creating a sense of place that will make the development more deliverable and therefore valuable. For build-to-rent's model, music's role in community building should definitely be considered further.
It's important to remember that music (like all arts and cultures) requires a full ecosystem to flourish. Headline acts come from grass-root venue beginnings and those venues need to be encouraged and cultivated. Shain believes that venues with capacity of less than 500 will need to look to multi-use in order to be sustainable as business models. The plurality of buildings could emerge as community centres, tech incubators, yoga studios or many uses. Tech solutions, such as Vanessa Butz's District, could really help with this mixed usage of buildings.
If you're interested in learning more about the role of music in the built environment, please visit Sound Diplomacy or explore Music UK's website.
Shain's favourite buildings are the Grand Place in Brussels and Alexandra Palace.
Kerb is Shain's favourite innovation within the built environment and whatt he aspires to emulate in a music context.
Nathan is an architect, transport planner, software engineer and entrepreneur. Having worked for many years as an architect specialising in sustainable transit-oriented developments, Nathan became interested in how new transportation technologies could positively influence urban design. This led him to work on planning and design stages of urban-scale Automated Transit Networks, before launching Podaris to tackle the issue of collaboration.
There are several tools aiming to act as the single source of truth in construction projects (for example, BIM level 4) but creating a single model that accommodates all the needs of planners, economists and engineers needs enormous complexity. At the heart of Nathan’s ethos is ensuring that the Podaris design is sufficiently sophisticated to ensure that all key decisions can be made but simple enough so that it focusses on just the key shared information. It achieves this by acting a parametric model with key data in the cloud and APIs to stay synchronised with 3rd party software.
We touch on the issue of Big Data and it’s worth taking a look at the data pyramid. The point is to remember that contextualised data is meaningless. We need to provide context to turn it into information and process the information to make knowledge. We can then implement that knowledge in the for of wisdom. It’s worth bearing in mind next time you consider gathering data!
Nathan previously worked on the autonomous Heathrow POD system (designed by Ultra Global PRT). We discuss the benefits and why it has failed to take off elsewhere.
Given Nathan’s background, it may be surprising that he predicts that the transport mode of the future will be feet. In the context of our conversations with Chris Choa, Andrew Waugh and Vanessa Butz about the importance of human connectivity, however, this seems more logical. As information becomes more democratic and widely available, Nathan sees a growing importance of human concepts of trust and creativity which require direct relationships to flourish and argues that it’s in dense urban environments where this will continue to flourish.
For those, like me, looking forward to recapturing green urban spaces through the Autonomous Vehicle revolution, Nathan offers some pretty glum thoughts!
Nathan’s favourite building is the Pantheon in Rome. In terms of innovation, the use of CLT and computational manufacturing in buildings is what excites Nathan.
Vanessa Butz wrote her masters thesis on "Understanding the DNA of Strong Entrepreneurial Hubs” and took her theory into practice by helping to build large technology and co-working campuses - Factory Berlin and Market-Tech’s Interchange Camden. Having worked at the intersection of cities and technology, she then founded District, providing Real Estate owners with a subscription-as-a-service app-based technology to upgrade their buildings to be ready for the what she sees as the “smart city revolution”.
For Vanessa, the revolution is all about creating technology that can enable us to improve the way we live our lives and aid in building a sense of community. Amidst global trend of urbanisation and social media integration, humans are coming together in communities in a host of new ways. How this manifests itself in our office design and use is likely to be influenced by technologies, such as Vanessa's District, but also the changing physical nature of the offices we occupy.
Driving this change is the impact of the much-maligned millennial & now Generation Z generations arriving at the workplace. People who’ve grown up with digital connectivity as second nature expect to able to work across a series of devices. It therefore follows that their office requirements may be different from the traditional provision. Instead of a traditional office space, they may need nothing more than a simple as a internet connection in a quiet place with ad-hoc access to a more collaborative space or meeting room.
Marcus Moufarrige of Servcorp sees this change in usage as leading to a Third Space in offices. The market is rapidly moving away from providing white spaces to focusing on a flexible service offering of space, amenity, facilities, community and customer service, and spaces that enable businesses to flex when required (with additional meeting rooms, facilities and amenities).
Moufarrige sees four ways in which land owners must adopt their approach in order to keep pace with the demands of the market:
- A mix of long-term leases with flexible space options must be created;
- The building experience needs to change to be more service- and hospitality-oriented;
- Landlords must focus on building service income streams, as well as rented income streams;
- Use common areas to better create amenity and community within the building.
Vanessa adds to the list the seamless integration of good technology; platforms like District will take property owners a long way to fulfilling Moufarrige's expectations.
As property owners adapt to the demands of "space as a service", we can expect to see a big impact in the market from District and other similar platforms such as: Equiem, Spaceflow, Allthings and Chainels.
Vanessa's favourite buildings are Factory Berlin and LABS Camden Triangle. Amongst a host of interesting themes for the future, such as VR & facilities management robotics, Vanessa cchooses Sky-ports (i can't find the link - if anyone has it I be happy to add!) - a company focussing on leasing space on roof-tops, in anticipation of demand for drone docking stations in the future!
Andrew Waugh is a founder of Waugh Thistleton Architects and a pioneer of design in the field of timber buildings, using cross-laminated timber (CLT).
Waugh Thistleton are committed to the use of timber construction which has earned them an international reputation in environmentally sustainable architecture and design. The practice has designed the world’s largest CLT building at Dalston Works – a 10 storey, 121 unit residential building, made entirely from CLT. WT are also currently working on 5 (out of the 10) major office CLT buildings under construction in London.
Andrew has been quoted as saying that he believes that "timber will replace all other materials for construction" and we discuss the benefits of building with CLT. These include:
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speed of delivery
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ability to integrate with hi-tech, off-site construction methods
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Sustainable resource
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Lower carbon emissions in build process
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CLT as store of carbon
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Bio-morphic effect for residents
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Aesthetic
Picking up on a comment from Nick Fulford in Episode 3, we discuss the bio-morphic effect and i reference the work undertaken by Wood for Good. Harvard's Center for Health and the Global Environment found that that our cognitive abilities can increase by over 100% by working in offices with wooden interiors (when additional ventilation is added). A fact that, if verifiable, must be one of the more under-utilised in the industry.
Andrew has strong views on the current trend of what he sees as egotistical architecture, with the focus on individual building, rather than its place within the its environment and surroundings. We discuss Lloyd Alter's concept of the Goldilocks Density and where CLT, in terms of design and structural requirements can help deliver integrated buildings that fulfil the density requirement our cities need.
In recent years, through a heavy social media presence, an active blog, a weekly newsletter and as a keynote speaker at global events, James Dearsley has managed to become almost synonymous with the UK PropTech scene.
Beyond his public persona, James runs The Digital Marketing Bureau, providing tech-enabled marketing services, and PropTech Consult where he advises property companies on digital transformation strategies.
While PropTech has gained a great deal of media (and investor) attention in recent years, there remains confusion as to exactly what it is. James has done as much as anyone in working to clear away the ambiguity - his PropTech map can be found here.
James's map is great overview of the current landscape. Hopefully, everyone will recognise a few names in each of the major categories but it also provides a good place to search for a few of the less know names and see if they can help the way you do business.
James sees the PropTech outlook in two broad phases:
Phase 1: in the short-term, the focus of PropTech is how technology and innovation can collaborate with existing industry in order to improve current processes and business.
Phase 2: what happens next is less certain as we see how truly transformative technologies, such as blockchain and AI, impact the way we all work.
It's hard to escape James's belief that everyone in the industry ought to be aware of at least the elements of PropTech that are useful to them. As he points out, this doesn't mean that you need to follow the full inside-outs of everything going on, just understanding the key developments. James's weekly newsletter is an excellent place to start in this regard!
James's PropTech innovation to watch out for is HyStreet; a business providing white label CRM software for estate agent branches. Another great example of the symbiosis of technology and traditional real estate viewed through the prism of PropTech.
Will Blakey is CEO of MOM (MyOfficeMove.co.uk), the online marketplace for moving office.
Will is also an investor in start-ups, such as Den Automation - the innovative light switch & plug socket business - as well as being an online business and life coach (link here) with a mission to help people "become the best version of themselves & live the life they want".
As an industry outside (Will's background was as varied entrepreneur in security, marketing and sales), Will is starting to shake up the traditional office agency market with his latest business, helping users of the platform find office premises and move into them as seamlessly as possible.
Despite his success to-date, Will see MOM as complimentary to the property agencies and fully appreciates the services & skills offered by existing brokers & agents.
Speaking with Will reminded me of Anthony Hitt's comments. Speaking from his role as CEO of Engel & Volkers (the residential estate agency) he identifies three areas where brokers / agents will continue to thrive:
Offering outstanding customer service. The right personal touch can build life-long relationships in a way in which technology is yet to imitate.
Utilising tech & data themselves in order to increase the service value. Data is useless without the correct means of interpretation. Expertise is still important in harnessing data and technology to arrive at considered advice.
Agents should target the higher price points (in commercial, i think this extends to the larger and more complex transactions). The more bespoke & complex the problem, the more scope there is for an intermediary to add value.
My guess is that, while MOM (and, at a more granular level, companies like Hubble) will continue to make the market more efficient (in terms of time) , the complexities & cost implications of many office moves are such that there's still a heavy reliance on good advisors. Will is clearly of this view and keen to ensure that MOM is collaborative in its approach to the market; he is not seeking to be a stand-alone solution, but to improve parts of it.
Wellness is important part of Will's life and experience to date. It's interesting to hear his view on how it's a growing part of what many of us are looking for in our work places. Clearly, an element of this is tenant / occupier-led in terms of how office space is fitted out. It does seem, however, that it's an area that demands more attention from developers and landlords than if often currently gets.
Will's favourite real estate tech innovation is Giraffe 360 - well worth having a look at their website!
Nick Fulford has a background of over 20 years in sales & marketing. In 2017 he quit to set up the a modular housing concept, nHouse, together with award-winning architect, Richard Hywel Evans.
As an industry new-comer, Nick is attempting to revolutionise an enormous market - the housebuilding market. 184,000 homes were built in England in 2016/17 so it's a big opportunity to play for, and there's government commitment to significantly increase this number. Set against the backdrop of a stretched traditional housing delivery industry, there's a clear need for innovation.
The nHouse is a spacious, affordable and contemporary two storey, three-bedroom modular home. The house is made using off-site construction techniques. It can be delivered and set up to any site across the UK within five months of order. Once on site, the nHouse can be ready for occupation in three days.
After I visit the newly unveiled nHouse prototype, Nick and I discuss what the nHouse is and he believes there's a gap in the market.
We talk about the nHouse's market position and why the team believe there is a gap in the market; both from a customer and a delivery perspective. Other topics covered include the importance of technology in the construction of the product (but also as a feature of the finished building), the role of sustainability in house-building and what it means, and the importance of using hi-tech materials and suppliers.
http://www.the-nhouse.com/
Mark Farmer is Founding Director & CEO of Cast and a expert in the delivery of complex residential-led projects & modern methods of construction.
Mark’s focus is on promoting modernisation within the construction industry through adoption of pre-manufacturing and more integrated & digitally-enabled delivery models.
Besides founding his own rapidly-growing business, Mark also managed to find the time to author the October 2016 Government Review of the Construction Labour Market Model, entitled “Modernise or Die”.
In the interview, we discuss the challenges facing the construction industry, including: a diminishing work force, a skills shortage, poor productivity and rising demand. We talk about the opportunities that exist to, not only meet these challenges head on, but in a manner which revolutionises the quality, speed of delivery and digitisation of the whole build process.
Chris Choa is an urban architect and cities expert who thinks a big scale.
Chris is Director of Cities at AECOM. He speaks frequently about urban performance and works with city and national governments to develop regional-scale strategies. A graduate of both Harvard and Yale, Chris also serves as Chairman of the UK Urban Land Institute and is on the external advisory board for the Sustainable Urban Development program at Oxford. He is an appointed advisor to the Mayor of London’s Infrastructure Delivery Board.
In the interview, Chris and I discuss what it means to be a cities expert and the importance of planning at city-level. Chris gives his views on the shape of the future and how technology will change not just where and why we build things but what we build, as human condition drives us to living closer together and living in a more collaborative manner.
We discuss Chris's role in the ULI and the scope for as many people as possible to get involved. Finally, we discover how Chris moved from a background in Fine Art to advising on cities across the globe.
Follow-ups to some of the topics discussed:
- The link to the UK ULI is here. Do try out one of the many events.
- The research undertaken on the impact of the Bohemian-Gay Index and property values can be found here.
- Further information on the government's policies & initiatives regarding AVs (autonomous vehicles) can be found here.
- For the research referenced which highlights the positive affects of densification in cities (using Atlanta, GA as an argument against urban sprawl), see here.
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