What's your challenge ?

There is no doubt that real estate is entering a challenging period of transition to net zero, where we need to re-engineer the way we value, finance, design, construct, refurbish, and operate our buildings. Failure to respond to this challenge will result in buildings that do not meet tightening government regulations, occupier demand for sustainable, comfortable and healthy workplaces and owners seeking low carbon investments.  80% of buildings with us today are estimated to still be in use in 2050 and in most cases extending the lifespan of existing buildings offers a lower carbon pathway than new build. This presents a great opportunity to transition most of the UK office stock to deliver sustainable, comfortable and healthy workplaces for occupiers and superior returns for owners. One of the barriers facing the industry is the landlord and tenant split incentive challenge, which deters investment in energy saving interventions as the landlord typically pays the cost, but the tenant accrues the savings that result from reduced energy use. Where these challenges exist, they need to be addressed through a collaborative approach taking into account all the factors impacting landlord and tenant to arrive at a ‘win win’ solution.

Stuart -  I believe design thinking's empathetic approach to understanding and designing for the user experience makes it is an essential innovation tool for anyone seeking to re-shape traditional working environments or enhance employee experience. Have copied a few interesting posts / articles links below - 2023 Trends: A People-First Design Approach To The Workplace Empathy at Work: Designing Tomorrow's Workplace Designing Empathetic Workplaces Can Be a Key Differentiator IDEO’s Design Kit highlighting design thinking methods A couple of related topics to research  are -  Neuroarchitecture and Purposeful Design. As Albert Einstein said, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  Will follow and look forward to reading other contributions on this topic!    

Hi Claudia Expect we are midjourney on a six year transformsformation, with second half increasingly dominated by defined workplace flexibility / return to work mandates skillfully crafted to reflect work/life balance, corporate culture and HR policy. Expect sucess will lie in culture and comunications, with quality of workplace second to culture.  Recent example of Amazon sets a good benchmark, worth taking a look - Amazon return to office plans Ultimate conclusion which many are reaching is that cemployees should go back to being in the office the majority of the timei.e. (at least three days per week. Many good observations capturered in public statement on RTO inc -  It’s easier to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture when we’re in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues When you’re in-person, people tend to be more engaged, observant, and attuned to what’s happening in the meetings and the cultural clues being communicated Collaborating and inventing is easier and more effective when we’re in person Newer employees stand to be most disadvantaged by not having the same learning and mentorship opportunities   Teams tend to be better connected to one another when they see each other in person more frequently.   For a more flexible 'digital first, together with purpose' style mandate, worth taking a look at Airbnb's approach - Airbnb’s design for employees to live and work anywhere Hope that helps! A

Interested to learn community feedback on use of AI tools / applications to improve effectiveness of Workplace Design decisions.   Extract below from Anthony Slumbers Blog entitle "Cities, AI and the Metaverse? Risks, Opportunities, Actions"  [The Blog - Antony Slumbers] Dynamic workplace layouts:   AI can analyse data on how employees interact with their physical environment, identifying patterns and trends that can inform the design of adaptive, flexible workplace layouts. This can help create office spaces that foster collaboration, creativity, and productivity while still providing areas for privacy and focused work when needed. Has anyone developed or procured an AI-powered space planning software tool to do this ?

Some great graphics in report by BranchPattern highlighting average embodied carbon intensity and cumulative emissions over 60 yearlife span of core & shell industrial buildings in the United States. BranchPattern - Embodied Carbon in  U.S. Industrial Real Estate Report Report reflects on observations from 26 Whole Building Life Cycle Assessments (WBLCAs)  ... in summary, to reduce, we must measure! Adoption of Environmental Product Disclosures (EPDs) for construction materials and eventual capture / storage of CO2 within built environment highlight ways Industry can decarbonise across lifecycle and build better buildings. What do you believe will be the most important milestones on our net-zero carbon pathway ?  

As organisation compete to better understanding employee space requirements / improve employee experience, Digital Twin technology is expect to gain prominance as demand rises for outcome-driven exploration.  Interested to learn community insights on advantages of using Building Information Modelling as a precursor to future adoption of Digital Twins .. when should tenants seek to adopt BIM ... only at design stage ?