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:

1. What’s driving the renaissance of the use of art in the built environment?
2. What are the benefits of art for spaces, places and buildings?
3. What mediums of art are being used?
4. How are arts projects generally funded?
5. How important is ROI of art and how can it be tracked?
6. Do art installations need to be permanent?
7. How do you develop an art strategy for a place or building?
8. 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 is The 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:

1. Innovation as a primary factor in building design for leading occupiers
2. The best examples of buildings and districts that foster innovation
3. Is design alone enough for innovation to flourish?
4. Are tech campuses the blueprint for large scale urban planning and design?
5. Has Covid-19 changed the direction of travel or just accelerated pre-existing trends?
6. Is this the end of boom of urbanisation as we’ve known it?
7. 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 is The 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:

1. What’s driving the growing interest in smart(er) buildings?
2. What’s Schneider Electric’s role been to date and where does it see the future?
3. Can buildings be retrofitted as “smart”?
4. Who’s responsible for the technology within buildings - owners or occupiers?
5. What are the keys to a successful digital building strategy?
6. 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:

1. Why are beautiful buildings important?
2. How do we measure beauty in the built environment?
3. 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?
4. What role do bureaucratic frameworks play in creating better places, not just more places?
5. Does technology have a role is building beautiful?
6. 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.