Technology + Built Environment
Smart Building Magazine Column, The Smart Chronicles
Smart buildings are becoming sophisticated enough that we’re finally allowed to ask awkward questions. Not “can it optimise my HVAC?” or “will the dashboard impress leadership?”, but something slightly more philosophical: what happens when the intelligence we’ve embedded starts smoothing reality in ways we don’t fully see? Not maliciously, not Skynet-in-a-plant-room, just… systemically. Most optimisation […]
The current wave of AI lives in documents, emails, and dashboards. The next wave will live in space. Embodied AI means software plus sensors plus motors operating in the real world: machines that can see a corridor, decide what to do, and act on it without waiting for a human. Once AI can move, buildings […]
There’s a moment in every smart building project when the confetti settles and reality walks in. The app works. The dashboards load. Then, within weeks, the control room drifts back to radio calls and spreadsheets. The gap isn’t technological, it’s operational. That’s why the most valuable deliverable on any PropTech programme isn’t a feature list, […]
You’d be forgiven for thinking PropTech was on a rocket ship. Flashy demos. AI-powered everything. A conference circuit full of optimism and matching lanyards. And yet, behind the scenes, the UK PropTech sector is beginning to show signs of fatigue. Not a dramatic collapse, but a slow, quiet unravelling that’s easy to miss if you’re […]
Have you ever walked into a building and instantly felt relaxed, productive, or inexplicably on edge? That’s not by accident, it’s the “vibe” at play. But now, there’s a new, tech-savvy cousin on the scene: vibe coding. I’m excited about what it could mean for smart buildings. Google defines vibe coding as: “Vibe coding is […]
One of the questions I get asked most, in boardrooms, conferences, or even in the pub, is: “What’s next for smart buildings?” It used to be a fun question. I’d launch into some enthusiasm about self-healing systems, walls that would talk back to you, or what was real about AI in mobile apps. These days, […]
One might be forgiven for believing that the value proposition of smart building technology has already won its case. After all, who doesn’t want a workplace that’s more efficient, sustainable, and responsive? Yet, large corporate occupiers still find themselves staring blankly at dashboards brimming with data, wondering how exactly this aligns with their ESG reporting, […]
In the smart building industry, one of the main hurdles to achieving optimal building performance has historically been the management and interpretation of unstructured data. Advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have dramatically reduced this barrier. AI has demonstrated remarkable capabilities in recognising and interpreting relationships between building assets without explicit labels. For example, AI can […]
In the not-too-distant future, building owners may hold more than just high expectations – they might use the courts as a tool for enforcing design quality. As KPIs for sustainability, health and wellbeing, and community engagement shift from being woolly should-haves to baseline requirements, accountability in building design will inevitably transform. Miss these critical targets, […]
Our industry is famed for its complexity and intricate collaborations. The idea of a smart building design consultancy running on just two people might sound like a radical proposition. Yet, in our increasingly digital world, where the industry seems to have converged on a standard set of smart building capabilities, the impressive prowess of generative […]