SPARK

Discoveries, innovations, and insights that illuminate the future of the built environment

Building a “happy place”

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Take a moment to close your eyes and picture your “happy place.” Perhaps you’re floating in a lake or hiking through the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Let your imagination open your senses and become fully immersed in that setting. Now—open your eyes. Were you imagining yourself indoors or outside?

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Andie Doyle.

At a recent conference I attended, a panelist asked the audience this question. It was during a Smart Home lecture, and—even then—80 percent of the participants said their happy place was outside.

This highlights a major opportunity within the building industry: To make indoor spaces happier and more desirable. It’s vital for construction industry leaders to work alongside technology innovators and service providers to change the optics of how a person interacts with their surroundings.

As of now, there’s no single industry or company with the resources or motivation to create a seamlessly integrated and connected experience for people. Consider, for example, the following hypothetical living and working situation.

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Artificial Intelligence: Transforming delivery in the built environment

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Photo via Flickr.

The following is the third in a series of posts providing insights into how trends on display at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will drive innovation in the built environment.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a buzzword that gets bandied about in all sorts of platforms these days. At its simplest, AI is a series of algorithms that allows a machine to mine incredibly large amounts of data, recognize patterns, assess and return relevant results—and in many cases, act on those results. Advances in quantum computing, deep learning, evolving human-to-machine interfaces, deep neural networks, cloud computing and many other technologies are making what was once a dream quickly turn into reality.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) featured thousands of variations on how companies are currently employing AI. Think about robots that fold laundry, drones controlled by hand gestures and assistants that respond to your voice and complete tasks—not to mention the cameras that detect people and record what each person looks at, how long they are present, who they are with and demographics.  The list of current technologies using some form of AI goes on and on.

It’s clear the ability to apply AI in the business world is real and becoming increasingly accessible. If you have data, then AI can help you slice and dice it to create more than you could ever dream of doing on your own. It’s taking extreme datasets and creating simple and useful outputs.

When we think about AI for McKinstry and the clients we serve, several application opportunities rise to the top.

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5G is coming

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The following is the second in a series of posts providing insights into how trends on display at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will drive innovation in the built environment.

The next few years will be full of discussions about Smart Buildings, Smart Cities and how the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will transform business and society in ways we haven’t yet realized. Sensors will be everywhere and in everything, gathering data to be analyzed and providing a deeper look into virtually everything. Most cars will have the ability to drive themselves. People will have six or more connected devices at any given time. And how we interact with the built environment will change.

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Driving toward a new tomorrow

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As we approach 2020, 3-D printing will become more prevalent in construction. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Change is inevitable. You can either sit back and let the chips fall where they may, or you can step up, take charge and make change happen. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’ve never been one to sit back.

The construction industry is plagued by a slow rate of change. Productivity in construction has remained flat while other sectors of the economy, such as manufacturing and technology, have seen exponential productivity growth. Dr. Barbara Bryson, author of The Owner’s Dilemma: Driving Success and Innovation in the Construction Industry, drove this point home at a recent gathering when she said, “There’s a freight train of disruption headed our way so designers, builders and owners better change the way they work, and fast.”

At McKinstry, we want to be driving that freight train and are preparing to do so. I’m personally inspired and energized by the innovations we see on the horizon in the next five, 10 and 15 years. These innovations will significantly reframe how we design, build and operate the built environment, and will define the cities of the future. McKinstry is already hard at work defining our pathway to this future.

Let me share with you some of the ground-shaking trends we see roaring down the tracks.

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How to make smart buildings

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At McKinstry, we think about smart buildings all the time.

Whether we’re working in factories, offices, or schools, our core goal is always the same: making the built environment more efficient and less siloed.

A building or space can be “smart” in many different ways, but the smartest buildings are usually extremely efficient. How, then, should building owners and operators strive to make their buildings smarter and attain that efficiency?

Recently, we produced a video that answers that very question:

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