Q&A: How is technology changing property development?

Dan Labbad, Chief executive, international operations, Lendlease The real estate sector will transform more quickly in the next 10 years than it has in the previous 100. The strategic conundrum facing industry leaders is whether they are going to be managing a specialist property business that makes good use of new technology, or a technology business that specialises in real estate. Other sectors have already made the transition. Take fintech for example – when did you last shake your bank manager’s hand? And then there’s retail. Ask shopkeepers how much they’re enjoying Amazon’s disruption of their business model.      While our sector is ripe for change, an urgent desire to get ahead of the curve and disrupt ourselves before someone else does can also lead to paralysis, as we scan the horizon for every new technological breakthrough. Is it blockchain, a new manufacturing process, or robotics? What will have the biggest impact – autonomous vehicles, machine learning, or building automation that lets us measure anything and everything? A good place to start is a focus on our customers. Do we understand how they will want to use our products, and are we meeting their needs today and into the future? How can we best use the data we harvest to inform our decisions? When a development project might take 20 years to complete, how can we be sure that what looked state-of-the-art in 2018 is future-proof and fit for purpose in 2038? We have developed a small window into the future at our urban regeneration project Elephant Park, in Elephant and Castle. The VRoom – a 360-degree virtual reality room – allows us to explore the completed development 10 years into the future. Using the latest 3D modelling, it is a space in which we review designs with experts and stakeholders to inform decisions at an early stage. It also enables customers to see the place – home, office or shop – they are buying into. The same VRoom allows us to bring people together to explore the construction site layout to mitigate and eliminate risks before a worker has even set foot on the ground.  We’re now extending this capability through augmented reality technology, using mobile devices in our workplaces and on our construction sites.  In this way we can make step changes in things like technical inspections, quality control and in situ visualisation for customer and community interactions, to name just a few. As developers, we have an exciting opportunity, and a responsibility, to enhance the utility and human experience of a place. Back in 1973, Lendlease founder Dick Dusseldorp said: “Companies must start justifying their worth to society, with greater emphasis placed on environmental and social impact rather than straight economics.” Using new ways of gathering data to measure in-use performance to validate designs brings us closer to achieving the real goal. Whether that is to improve human wellbeing or minimise environmental impacts, the internet of things now gives us the opportunity to measure performance and respond to human activity in ways that were impossible just a few years ago.  The information now available means that the primary responsibility for changing our methods of construction lies not only with the construction industry but with the developers and design teams involved at the very start of the process.  Until we shift the measures of success and rewrite the briefs we use to appoint our design teams, we will continue to get traditional designs, which will inevitably lead to buildings that won’t be fit for the future.  By enabling the design-led approach with new technology, Lendlease is moving towards a world where safety, time and cost certainty, quality and repeatability are baked in from the outset. We are beginning to tap into technology that can process data faster and in ways that people simply cannot, allowing us to optimise designs in hours rather than months. Enhanced productivity will lead to greater efficiency, pace and scale, that in turn can support affordability, not least to enable a transformation in housing delivery.  In the property industry of the future, technology and data aren’t second thoughts or bolt-ons to our old business model. They are an integral part of the places we will create and how we will create them.