Recreating The Path From Bricks To Clicks With Deep Data

RECREATING THE PATH FROM BRICKS TO CLICKS WITH DEEP DATA

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City shaper. Coined by our Managing Director for Lendlease’s Google Real Estate Development venture, Claire Johnston leads a team of development futurists in Silicon Valley that are driving new approaches to property development and community creation, predicated on data.

“We love the responsibility of being city shapers and real estate developers. We believe that creating safe successful places is the combination of art and science and we like art and science to be in balance,” she shared at the Autonomous21 virtual summit.

Acknowledging that there is a perceived tension that exists in the ‘technology versus creativity’ dynamic, Johnston said that the secret was to drop the opposition and embrace data as being part of the solution.

Watch full session: From Bricks to Clicks: Harnessing Data to Drive Better Customer Outcomes

Lendlease has been working with Google on the transformative, 15-year development project of Google's Bay Area landholdings in San Jose, Sunnyvale and Mountain View, California. This project is revolutionising the approach to creating residential, retail, hospitality and associated community uses across 15 million square feet of new neighbourhoods.

“For the past year, we've been working to advance our explorations and test ideas, to see what places we can create in Silicon Valley and bring that learning to the world.”

These developments and the launch of the Podium platform, have been evolving as COVID-19 sent a jolt to the world and created a sense of urgency to ensure significant public health improvements were enshrined in future built environments. Johnston notes that gift of data analysis is that it allows for making profound changes to the infrastructure backed by insights and knowledge that can modify outcomes and create ongoing opportunities to do better.

“The aim for all of our communities today needs to be keeping people healthy, safe and happy wherever they live, work and play. In the present pandemic, people are more informed and tech savvy and they expect proactive improvement. People want changes that will keep them together with a great quality of life in a safe way.

Lendlease is studying critical areas that impact health and safety the build environment such as air quality. Studies have revealed that the presence of air pollution in our cities can increase the death rate from pandemics by about 8%. “We have more data than ever before and the ability to understand problems and make changes faster. And the challenge for us now is how we do this with accuracy and impact.”

Leveraging the Podium platform, Lendlease and its partners can improve the way in which they understand what people want and find better ways of bringing it to them. “As developers, we care deeply about sustainability, about safety, and about value creation. These are the big questions that we spend all our time thinking about.”

The acceleration of data is almost unimaginable with 49 Zettabytes of data forecast to be in the world by 2024. The data is also being made available from new sources, such as those from Podium partner Johnson Controls or open data sources for local cities, councils, authorities or public health departments. “The power of Podium is that we are able to put all of this together and find the answers much more quickly.”

Digital Twin technology is one such innovation, which allows for the creation of multiple building designs in minutes. Developers and planners can then review how each of the different configurations would deliver against local county regulations sustainability requirements, community requirements and the economic value created. These innovations allow for more accuracy in budgeting based on data transparency, digital technology and connection across the supply chain. It also can radically accelerate timelines, where it can take months, sometimes even years to model multiple development scenarios.

“With these tools, we can simulate how buildings will perform and adapt to changing environments for example in our world. The ability to bring all of this data onto a single platform at the same time as development through the entire real estate lifecycle brings huge possibilities. It means that we now have the ability to have clarity, like we've never had before. For me, it means that we can balance the art and science of real estate.” Johnston said.

Watch full session: From Bricks to Clicks: Harnessing Data to Drive Better Customer Outcome