Intelligent Data Driven Futures

As data-driven approaches are introducing and establishing a new set of economic, social and cultural values, we have started to question some of our age old assumptions, conceptions and practices about our built habitat. One of the most profound implications is the transformation of the AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) industry from a document based to an information based business. Both the impact and scale of this transformation will become more dramatic with the increase in global data traffic two thirds of which is predicted to move on to cloud computing systems by 2016 (Cisco Global Cloud Index, 2011-2016). This implies the introduction of even more complex and diverse interactions (e.g. through internet of things) between buildings, infrastructures and humans. Such developments have already made significant impact in other industries and are likely to be a step change in how we build and operate in the near future. “Data” is not new to our industry, however what is new is the amount of data that is currently available to us and our improved capacity to share, capture, measure, compile, process and translate data into meaningful and actionable information. Although the potentials are vast, Architectural/Engineering practice and Construction sector are slow to adopt the data-driven approaches. The IDDF (Intelligent Data-Driven Design Futures) symposium brought together some of the world-leading thinkers, practitioners and innovators from the Built Environment and Urban Informatics research and practice to explore what “data-integrated” future might hold for our sector. The presentations and discussions challenged our “business as usual” mode of thinking and highlighted diverse insights and perspectives for more agile and adaptive solutions for the future, and in discovering sustainable modes of imagining, creating and working intelligently. With this document we aim to summarize the presentations and discussions, and highlight some of the diverse insights and perspectives we captured from this day-long symposium