Thinking back, I actually think one incredibly important benefit was learning that sometimes you need to step back from your work in order to take it forwards, not only physically by pinning up your work on the wall and watching it from a distance, but also through bouncing ideas off other people and understanding great design comes out of discussions and talking to others, whether they are your tutors, strangers, friends or family.
We should shape this now, proactively, rather than wait for external forces or commercial imperatives to impose something on us..Considering the examples above, here are the key aspects I believe a digital marketplace for construction Platforms should include:.
Create a direct link between customers and manufacturers, reducing transactional friction.Enable ease and transparency of procurement and payment.Host a widely distributed network of suppliers, from major materials suppliers to specialist SMEs.
Ensure vendors are rigorously pre-qualified to ensure consistency and quality of components.Ensure transparency and provenance of raw materials and documentation of the complete manufacturing process etc.. Objectively allow buyers to compare products against a range of value criteria; not just costBe a neutral broker, charging buyers and sellers a small fee to use the service on the market does not itself influence the price.
Allow for standard products as well as compatible enhancements.
Facilitate use of a range of configurators via API’s or plug-ins.Converting offices to labs.
This is something else we’re looking at – or designing the mechanical and electrical engineering systems in new office buildings so that they are flexible enough to change usage later.Obviously, there’s a challenge in thinking about ceiling heights and so on, but mostly the complexity is around air exchange.
In an office, you aim for one and a half air changes per hour, whereas with laboratories, because they've got lots of safety cabinets and other devices, we have to look at 10, 15 or even 20 changes an hour in some places.So the ductwork has to be 10 times as big, and the risers 10 times as big to carry the air up and down, and so on.