Despite the many promised benefits of these digital technologies, the reality is that many have yet to reach their full potential in the built environment, writes Anni Feng, chair of the Institution of Engineering & Technology’s Digital Futures Policy Centre
Digital technologies hold remarkable promise for the built environment. Take digital twins, for example: a digital twin is a “virtual model of an object, a system, or a process. It is connected to its real‑world counterpart by a two‑way flow of right‑time data, meaning it mimics it in all aspects.”
Although the first digital twin was used by NASA to rescue the Apollo 13 mission over 50 years ago, where it was referred to as a “mirror system”, the term digital twin was not used until much later.
Today, digital twins promise more effective asset design, project execution and asset operations by dynamically integrating data and information across the asset lifecycle to achieve efficiency and productivity gains.
Connecting various digital twins together at a campus or city scale allows greater understanding of how different actions might affect the real world, eg testing energy optimisation approaches.
For many in the construction industry, though, terms such as “digital twin” remain ambiguous. Attempts to implement such digital solutions often result in confusion, frustration and disappointment when the results do not align with expectations.
Despite the many promised benefits of these digital technologies, the reality is that many have yet to reach their full potential in the built environment. Several persistent myths and presumptions continue to hold back progress.
“We need to engage the architect and structural/civil/mechanical/electrical/public health engineers to come up with the design first then we can think about digital.”
Even when the industry is gradually moving away from thinking that digital is a nice‑to‑have, engagement with digital specialists still happens relatively late in the project lifecycle. This approach misses the early opportunity of translating workflows and user experiences, which can be transformed by digital technologies, into physical design concepts. This can potentially redefine what the built environment is for.
It also misses the opportunity to blend digital technologies into user engagement conversations for the design team to form a more holistic assessment of user experience and requirements.
Engagement with the user community is so important in built environment projects to ensure transparent communication, and there are benefits to be enjoyed by the wider community and the natural environment. This engagement also contributes to inclusive design and solutions that work for diverse user groups.
Digital specialists should be engaged at the beginning of the project to support with defining the vision, procurement strategy, funding mechanisms and creating design concepts. Many digital solutions need more than capital investment, but also continual operational expenditure, so the thinking about funding should be for the longer term.
“Digital is a one‑man band.”
Digital is inherently interdisciplinary. There is a need for user experience research and design, user interface design, digital infrastructure engineering, network engineering, software engineering, enterprise architecture, data science, data engineering, modelling and many more skills across the digital spectrum – collaborating and exchanging insights on developing a solution.
Yet we often see digital being packaged as the purview of Building Information Modelling (BIM) or Information & Communication Technology (ICT) in construction projects.
The appreciation of the scale and complexity of digital is required to meaningfully scope out requirements and responsibilities for digital in the built environment. The successful delivery of digital elements very often requires close collaboration between the contractor team (who would design and deliver the physical building/infrastructure) and the client team (who would usually be the owner/operator).
Another reason to engage with the client team is to understand how this new delivery will fit into the client’s existing estate to reduce the risk of lack of interoperability and drastically different ways of working. Collaboration across the wider design team is crucial to ensure application of new digital technologies is resilient, sustainable, accessible and usable, linking to systems thinking.
“Despite not knowing much about digital, we as project leadership will make the decisions.”
Decisions are being made about digital – including scope, responsibilities, functionalities and go/no‑go calls – when there is a lack of common understanding of what digital is and what it can do.
With the digital twin example, there is confusion around what it comprises, whether it is a continuum from point clouds to more advanced modelling. This misalignment affects the investment decision, and the project outcome.
As with many other technologies, skills remain a barrier. Research from the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET) has found that UK firms are already the least likely to recognise digital twins as a priority technology for reaching net zero (5%) – in the construction sector, only 3% say digital twins are important.
Only 23% of employers think that the UK has the skills in this area. Without leadership teams who understand digital sufficiently to champion the right pathways, organisations risk underinvesting in the skills needed to implement technologies such as digital twins successfully.
Ultimately, unlocking the full value of digital technologies in the built environment requires moving past outdated assumptions and building a shared understanding of what these tools can genuinely offer. By engaging digital expertise early, recognising the breadth of skills involved and empowering informed leadership, the industry can shift from misplaced expectations to meaningful delivery, and begin realising the benefits these solutions have long promised.
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