Construction Industry
A Blueprint for the Future of Retrofitting in Smart Buildings
November 2nd, 2023Net Zero Buildings Explored: Elithis Tower, Dijon
October 27th, 2023
Defining a Zero Emissions Building from the Top Down
A zero emissions building is not as easy to define as you may think. Should it include embodied carbon, for example, should efficiency and clean energy generation be specific parts of the definition or should it simply refer to the level of emissions, whatever the approach? These are the kinds of questions being discussed in […]

Funding Takes Off for AI Drone Building Inspection!
Of the one million or so buildings in New York City, 314 have over 40 stories and are considered skyscrapers but more than 14,500 are over the six-story threshold to require a physical inspection of their facade every five years. With the growth of tall buildings around the world, especially in Asian and Middle Eastern […]

A New Venture Capital Fund to Bridge the Construction-Operation Divide?
In this Research Note, we take a look at Suffolk Technologies, the corporate venture capital arm of Suffolk Construction, which recently closed a $110 million inaugural venture capital fund for “Built World Technology Innovations.” The fund will invest in early-to-growth stage companies across construction technology (ConTech) and property technology (PropTech) spaces, with a focus on […]

Breaking the Shackles: Overcoming Resistance to Change in Smart Buildings
The commercial building industry has been notoriously slow in its adoption of new smart buildings technologies, struggling with a deep-seated inertia that has seen innovation lag other market verticals. Bound by the shackles of long-established practices and the burden of decades-old infrastructure and systems, it remains highly resistant to disruption. Complex supply chains, entrenched ecosystems, […]

How Improved Stakeholder Collaboration Leads to More Effective Smart Buildings
A huge range of different parties have both a stake in and a role to play in the delivery of, successful smart building solutions across the life cycle of a building. Each of these stakeholders comes with its own unique set of priorities, goals, and key performance indicators (KPIs). Achieving successful outcomes as part of […]

Discovering Where BIM Ends & Digital Twins Begin
Building Information Modelling (BIM) and digital twins are two important technological concepts that can, at times, be considered quite separate or be used interchangeably in the buildings sector. Both concepts could be defined as “a digital representation of assets, processes and systems in a physical space,” yet they tend to be used by very different […]

THAT Overused “40%” Building Energy Consumption Statistic Investigated!
“Buildings account for 40% of all energy consumption and represent 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions”. Yes, this is another article that starts with the same statistic you’ve heard for the past decade! Like a bad smell, it permeates every research report, media article and industry conference you’ve attended in recent memory. It must be […]

Net Zero Buildings Explored: The Forge, Bankside
Completed in January 2023, The Forge, Bankside, comprises two new-build net-zero commercial office buildings of nine storeys each and almost 140,000 square feet of internal space. It is the first commercial office development constructed and operated in line with the UK Green Building Council’s (UKGBC) net zero carbon buildings framework. Property developer, Landsec, has constructed […]