roundtable


adapt to structural change?” queried Laurie. Would occupiers, who may cherish their location, be forced to move because of a building’s lack of flexibility?


Savage highlighted that the business world’s built environment was now also facing the need to provide new digital technology infrastructure to enable greater data provision for modern agile working companies.


While the current focus has been on sustainability and energy performance of buildings, what happens if government or industry regulators decide there is going to be a digital tech equivalent of an EPC?


The Greater London Authority had already endorsed WiredScore, a benchmarking organisation providing certified connectivity ratings for buildings. London’s new Leadenhall Building has a WiredScore platinum rating. “It ensured it had about eight different fibre providers before any space was let.”


Barker: “We have around 22 million homes in this country and, in terms of future sustainability and connectivity, enabling people to work from home has got to be a huge prize for the UK economy.”


Data-poor environments could become less competitive, less attractive to tenants, if regulators enshrined minimum digi-tech property standards, Savage suggested.


“Energy performance is important, but it is just illustrative of many other types of technology that can have a similar trajectory around smart buildings in the future.”


Digital technology: transforming the places we work


CityFibre digital infrastructure provider Nick Gray explained that business demand for digital data supply was placing a noticeable strain on current copper-wired telecoms infrastructure, originally designed for phone traffic. UK communications infrastructure is today behind the connectivity standards of most European and even some developing nations.


“CityFibre, and others, are now trying to build and lay as much fibre as possible to help bridge the gap between large corporates who can afford their own fibre and SMEs who don’t have that luxury and are reliant on copper, so helping to transform everyone’s productivity through better connectivity.”


Craig Laubscher wondered if a new or refurbished premises might meet an occupier’s communication requirements but poor local infrastructure provision would not enable the building’s optimum connectivity performance.


Gray agreed that might happen in less urban areas. The building’s WiredScore rating would be based on the communication infrastructure that was entering the building.


Savage: “The hassle and time factor in getting your comms working properly is why this technology piece needs to be thought about now, The smart buildings concept does pre-suppose that you have the right surrounding utilities in place.”


He exampled the US, long experienced with tall buildings, having very well managed utilities riser documentation and removal processing. In the UK, too often “the tenant’s kit gets clipped both ends and left in the riser which gets blocked as years go by.” Equally, to save delay and frustration, legal wayleave agreements could be standardised rather than individually renegotiated, he felt.


Laubscher suggested commonly adopted infrastructure, hence readily interchangeable, should also be standard in new buildings to assist speedy reoccupation by tenants.


Savage believed such ‘moving-in’ troubles were one reason companies resorted to using the WeWork and Regus business model of serviced offices. “There is a complex causation interplay running between the new technology and market expectations and it is generating new opportunities.”


Jonathan Hill highlighted that technology connectivity also offered locational choice. “We are working in our homes, on the train, in hotels or coffee shops. Work as we all know, is what we do, not where we do it. Everyone expects to be able to work everywhere. The idea of a working desk is not as it was in the past, and we are now creating a lot of collaborative-style workplaces.”


Conversion of fringe City areas that no-one would have considered for business use during the past 30 years was now becoming fashionable and desirable, added Hill.


“The Tea Building in Shoreditch has a waiting list for tenants,” noted Barker.


Apple is occupying the old Battersea Power Station, other companies are moving out, choosing to be based around the M4 and M3 corridors – close enough to London links, but gaining in property costs, and employee travel and wellbeing.


Allan: “Without a doubt technology is changing the way we work.” Morgan Lovell research showed an average 55% of office workstations today are underutilised. Internal mobility shows that almost half of all desks in a workplace are wasted. Organisations need to create an environment that allows people to work however they want to work and more collaboratively.


Rob Driscoll: “Today’s open source collaborative workplace designs are entirely


Continued overleaf ... THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH COAST – DECEMBER 16/JANUARY 17 businessmag.co.uk 21 Nick Gray Joe Jeffers David Savage


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