Through digital technology, our communities are becoming more connected, more engaged and responsive to their environment, and more resilient to challenges and shocks.
We live in a time of heightened awareness of infrastructure’s role as a creator of social value, and of increasing acceptance of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry’s responsibility to help combat climate change.
As such, the data and technology available to planners and engineers is unlocking previously hidden information and insights, driving better decision making, and creating better project and community outcomes.
As demand for new infrastructure intensifies around our urbanizing world, so too do efforts to better collect and manage data to inform the design of our cities’ roads, bridges, tunnels and buildings, and to manage environmental impacts.
The benefits of these data-first approaches are clear. For example, the process to capture quantities and material-type information is being revolutionized through computational design technologies. Data that typically has not been available until detailed design phases, is now available for early concept designs to calculate the embodied or operational carbon equivalent of a proposed asset, resulting in design production time reduction of up to 20 percent.
In addition to these savings, which run to hundreds of millions of dollars, computational design and other technologies are enabling significantly lower-carbon designs, which translate to more sustainable and resilient assets, and better experiences for those using them.
Further, while community engagement around the real or perceived impacts of infrastructure remains front-of-mind, technological advances in the sharing of design information are also powering more effective local engagement and buy-in.
Data that was typically stored in systems and formats only accessible by engineers is now available online and presented in ways that prioritize two-way communication. As social media has demonstrated, good ideas can come from anywhere, and interactive online platforms are democratizing the feedback loop and presenting a richer and more accurate view of community sentiment that can be analyzed, visualized and shared like never before — again feeding into decision making, and the best possible, long-term community outcomes.
The position of technology as a true enabler of our cities’ development is hard to dispute, and the required leadership to adopt these technologies is emerging. Public and private asset owners, and their supply chains, are starting to embrace the growing urgency to change the way we work.
Investments in trialing and testing these new technologies are on the increase, and we see more clients and stakeholders willing to make the necessary investments — training teams on the latest technologies to build understanding and demonstrate benefits, while aligning their use with increasingly ambitious net zero and sustainability agendas that prioritize social value.
The growing Asia Pacific region provides a window into what’s possible, and what’s ahead. From intelligent transport systems that prioritize user centricity, to accessible, adaptive and responsive public spaces, cities such as Singapore and Hong Kong are embracing change through a ‘whole of life’ infrastructure thinking that has technology at its center.
This third edition of our Digital Cities series shares insights and progress that demonstrate the future is indeed bright.
Through the planning, design and construction process, we must not lose sight of the end goal, of what we all want from our cities — thriving, resilient and sustainable hubs that are great places to live, work, play and grow.