The future of AEC tech – thoughts on NXT BLD/DEV 2023
Hosted by AEC Magazine, this year’s NXT BLD (and in particular the inaugural NXT DEV) conferences were exceptional in their serious approach to discussing the impact that tech will have (or should be having) on the industry.
The event brought together leading architects, software startups and investors to enable meaningful conversations about the near and midterm future of the industry.
On the ground and watching some of the panels and presentations on demand later (if you haven’t already, I heartily recommend that you check these out here), I drew out some particularly resonant themes:
An urgent need for cross-sector collaboration
Many attendees made it clear that current AEC software has not developed enough over the last 20 years to meet industry needs. This is a failure of software vendors to develop their products sufficiently, but also a failure of the consuming organisations who have not invested in R&D themselves.
But there is hope. At NXT DEV, Aaron Perry from AHMM discussed The Future AEC Software Specification. Spearheaded by a collective of large AEC firms, the aim is to set out an open-source specification for future tools that will facilitate good design and construction, by enabling creative practice and supporting the production of construction-ready data.
It has the potential to revolutionise the AEC field for years to come by fostering true cross-organisation collaboration with design, construction and supply chain partners. That means enhanced productivity, efficiency, sustainability and creativity... effectively improving just about every single element of the design and construction process.
But this won’t be easy. It will require cross industry investment (of time, money and personnel) in R&D, a heroic support of start ups by AEC organisations (not just VCs and other external investors) and a massive upskilling across the board in terms of technical capabilities – from coding, to understanding data and emerging tech.
Without coordination and engagement, the industry remains at the mercy of the big vendors. Big vendors that will prioritise the short term profits of shareholders over all else.
The impact of AI
AI is causing a stir across society, and it’s no different in our industry. For the AEC sector, it will undoubtedly play a huge part in how organisations design and operate in the years to come.
But just as there are opportunities for increased efficiency, faster development and improved capabilities, there are also threats of job losses, fee impacts and IP loss. No-one knows exactly what the impacts will be, or exactly when they will arrive, but everyone is agreed that seismic change is on the way. In years. Not decades.
Which is why AEC organisations need to engage now. They need to try and understand a rapidly evolving technical revolution, evaluate how emerging AI can help meet objectives and then try and ensure these are harnessed to provide net positive outcomes for us all. A much closer integration of design and technical operations is critical. Those who don’t take such an approach will likely be left behind.
What this means for sustainability
Whether sustainability can be compatible with an ever-increasing built environment and exponentially more powerful tech is a hard circle to square. And interestingly, the sustainability sessions at the event were quite separate from the talk around tech development. Perhaps we are hoping (carbon footprint behemoth) AIs will furnish us with the solutions here…
It would be good to see sustainability integrated more explicitly in discussions of tech development in future. Perhaps this should actually be the starting point for every discussion, every development, every strategy.
As an entrepreneur providing an industry informed innovative service to the sector, I can attest to both the resistance to change and lack of cross collaborative practice in the sector. This has prevented organisations and their vendors from evolving effectively over many decades. That approach cannot now hold as the challenges facing us require much more urgent engagement.
Events such as NXT BLD/DEV are critical in terms of breaking down traditional thinking and opening up possibilities to better define and harness the future of our industry. Congratulations to AEC magazine and the contributors to the Future Design Software Specification for championing such initiatives. But let’s hope many more of us engage in the coming years to ensure a wider, more inclusive and effective evolution of our organisations, our work and our relationship with our society and environment.