the built environment, while we have seen a certain permeation of digital tools and technologies into the industry over the past decades, we still have not necessarily had that seismic shift in terms of productivity, performance, improvement and efficiency,” observed Matt Gough, Innovation Director for Mace.
Seah Chee Huang, DP Architects Pte Ltd Matt Gough, Mace
“The reason is that technology is not the panacea, it is not the silver bullet; it is an enabler. What we really require is something else, in order to achieve that seismic shift, which we believe is the climate emergency. It’s not something that we had thought or wished for—definitely something that as an industry we had to make it more effective, impactful or responsive—it was going to accelerate change, innovation and transformation way quicker than any digital tools that we have been testing,” he observed.
Tai Lee Siang, BCA Prof Dr Chris Luebkeman, ETH Zurich
What will the ‘new’ normal look like? “For some, COVID-19 was a wave that washed over us; some surfed this wave skilfully, others saw this as a terrifying plunge. Yet others in the world felt this as a tsunami. No matter where you are in the world, what we have seen, is that the frenetic pace of our lives that we spend travelling came to a true grinding stop, where the economies of the world ‘switched off’,” observed Prof Dr Chris Luebkeman, Director of Strategic Foresight, Office of the President, ETH Zurich.
“I have an issue with the word ‘normal’, because there is no such thing as normal. Each one of us will have a different definition of the word ‘normal’ as we go about our day. The question now is what will be ‘sticky’; what is going to stay,” Prof Dr Luebkeman analysed. He elaborated on the following:
• An accelerator of the inevitable Digital transformation is no longer a “someday”, but a “must”; we can do now in seconds what it took weeks to achieve. There will be implications, consolidations; the question is who is going to have an advantage.
• An appreciation of the moments that matter A rediscovery of typologies of interaction, which we have become painfully aware of the interaction that we are missing through the lockdowns.
• An appreciation of the efficiencies of transactional versus necessary meandering of the creative We no longer have to only rely on travelling to a meeting, we can click into one via a Zoom platform in seconds.
• An increased awareness of global supply chains A crash course in the fragility of globalisation, and an anticipation to enhance nationalistic supply resilience.
Data has become a crucial part of the new normal: where things are, where they are going, what is to come. There is now a new expectation for the tools and parameters that we did not know we have to optimise for a COVID-19 pandemic; our systems now have new optimisation parameters. There is a need for total design, an increased awareness of the critical nature that we cannot continue to work in silos, Prof Dr Luebkeman observed.
“The future will look a lot like it did a year ago, but with a digital ‘twist’,” he concluded.
Reimagining the built environment to build back better “For a period of time now, we have been trying to encourage and inspire change for our business and the wider industry. I was looking back in terms of where we were pre-COVID-19, and as a company involved in
102 FUTURARC
“While we are now starting to get back to the same levels of resource and labour, we found that our productivity has improved: 50 per cent of the workforce reduction but only 30 per cent reduction in output. A feedback from our site managers revealed that ‘with the productivity and the new ways of thinking, we believe we only need 7.5 people to do the same as 10 people,’ which is a significant shift in the industry,” he shared.
Three big trends: Workforce, supply chain, environment “We had a glimpse of the future, and it is imperative that we take some of that positive learning and accelerate and/or capitalise on it,” Gough commented, with an elaboration on the following three sectors:
Workforce: Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was difficult for us to really understand how our workforce is operating: who and where they are, what they are being tasked with, etc. There is a long-held believe in the construction industry that if you are running behind schedule, you bring more labour to site, you throw more people at it, to try and generate more activity. What we learn during the last six months was that actually, that is not working. Less people could produce more results. Better clarity, better planning, better transparency and direction around what is going on has allowed an increased productivity without an increase of labour.
Supply chain: The fragility of supply chains and the arrangements that we have around both materials and labour have proven to be a critical area in need of improvement and to be addressed. With the impact of the pandemic, there was a closing of borders, affecting the ability to get materials to sites, the lack of visibility of stock piling and where materials are, etc. The industry had to make a seismic shift as to how these issues are being approached, with a need to ensure that this is being incorporated as a standard procedure moving forward.
Environment: It’s been long proven in cases that work off-site is safer, produces better quality, and is more productive compared to the same work on-site.
“There is a recognition that technology continues to be an enabler of those types of changes. Our digital transformation has been incredible, we say we have been through 10 years of change within weeks. That’s not through doing new things, but just the absorption and adoption of the tools that we already had in place. The proliferation of technology and tools to support us to do better work has been the silver lining in these recent challenging times,” Gough shared.
“These past six months have provided a glimpse of the future for all of us. How can we make things more efficient, how can we rationalise and use less space, and the most classic one; can we do that any cheaper? These are questions that we really need to ask ourselves, in order to be an industry that delivers benefits to the society, and one that meets the demands of WELL certification and the climate emergency,” he concluded.
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