DCS to support IH Digital Futures Summit 2021

"Just before 01:00 on 14 June 2017, fire broke out in the kitchen of a fourth floor flat at the 23 storey #GrenfellTower block in North Kensington, West London. Within minutes, the fire had raced up the exterior of the building and then spread to all four sides. By 03:00, most of the upper floors were well alight. Seventy-two people died." _ Source BBC News

Credit: Construction Manager

Like many across the UK from the Black and Minority Ethnic [aka BAME] community, we pay homage to the survivors of the tragic event of 14 June 2017; in honour of those that actually lost their lives in the event that has now been associated with that date. The totally unnecessary fire that literally destroyed Grenfell Tower, even after four years has not [as yet] produced any real tangible 'lessons learnt' other than to say and suggest - there is still so much more to be done. Culturally, ethically, procedurally and morally, the failures are numerous and solutions still largely unknown; but progress is being made across the sector; largely via digitally enabled solutions.

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry whilst it continues to unravel the mystery of exactly what happened, remains shrouded in 'unknown knowns' and 'known unknowns'; all of which has placed the UK construction industry in a poor light. Already plagued by so many ills, the weight of displeasure has grown incrementally since then.

Credit: Gov.UK

Despite this tragic event taking place prior to the pandemic of 2020, the entire debacle has been considered both a litmus test and watershed moment for the industry. It has considered and invoked improved 'digital' asset management, thereby introducing 'a documented truth layer' for [ultimately] every single built asset, commencing with HRRB's as defined by the Dame Hackitt Review in her report Building a Safer Future.

Credit: Dame Judith Hackitt / Gov.UK

Inspired by an appointment to Chair and deliver a 'BIM in Asset Management' Research Project by SouthEast Consortium, the wider work and influence of the G15 leadership and following a 'virtual roundtable' with colleagues at global professional body, the RICS, our founder and Chairman Bola Abisogun OBE FRICS, originally shared his industry perspective in November 2020.

Since then, and following the launch of the CDBB / Tech UK reports on 25.02.21 - [you can watch the launch event here] much has happened in terms of tangible 'behind the scenes' progress. The use-case for 'digital twins' [i.e. the Black Box] in Social Housing was 'officially' launched on the day and it is this particular activity that has shaped the well documented efforts of our Chairman since that date.

Credit: Tech UK [via Tom Henderson]

So much so, the current 'sector wide' focus on digitally enabled 'Social Housing' solutions (founded in BIM) that speaks to the need for robust asset management procedures, ideally 'a Black Box in Asset Management' [and 'single source of truth'] that could have told the exact story as to what happened and why such monumental failures were made, has moved on a number of significant steps in the interim.

Credit: Centre for Digital Built Britain

The use-case for digital twins in Social Housing has been established with a clear mandate and focus on decarbonisation and retro-fitting of the existing estate. The model is now being deployed as a sector wide initiative. Working with many of the leading social housing governing bodies, our most recent engagement with Inside Housing is testament to the growing interest in the work of our Chairman.

Credit: Inside Housing / Ocean Media Group

We look forward to supporting the team at Inside Housing, amidst the wider social housing [and private] sector, adding value through our role as Chartered Surveyors, ensuring that readily available information and guidance is proffered to all, in readiness and support of commercially astute, ethical and scaleable 'digitally enabled' solutions. We need to create generational change, both culturally and operationally, whilst ensuring that every built asset on a UPRN basis maintains a 'dynamic' log-book of 'as-built' activity, during its entire lifecycle.

Will keep you posted as work proceeds....... #Grenfell #EveryoneMatters #Socialnequality #PropTech solutions.