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Lendlease Previews Podium for Development 

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Lendlease recently gave an exciting preview of its game-changing digital platform solution Podium for Development (P4D) – a transformative digital ecosystem built on common data standards that connect developers, designers, and the supply chain, to deliver higher construction productivity and promote sustainable building methods – together with go-to-market partner Surbana Jurong, developers, partners and stakeholders across the built environment.

 

Instead of the months involved in design using conventional methods, P4D accelerates directly from design to supply by using its automation algorithms to configure optimal designs using a ‘kit of parts’1 defined by manufacturers. This leads to reduced waste in time, cost and materials. At the event held at Google Singapore Campus attended by key players in the industry, many shared the challenges faced by the built environment sector, from persistently low productivity growth to continued supply chain issues. The consensus reached was that we are facing a critical need to transform our conventional building practices and leverage digital innovations like P4D,  along with new ways of thinking including DfMA approaches to build better, faster and more sustainably.

 

With Managing Director of the Global AI Business at Google Cloud Caroline Yap delivering a  keynote on the potential of generative AI in shaping the built environment, it is clear that now is the time for the built environment to reap the benefits of artificial intelligence and machine learning. P4D also signals that digitalisation will enable conventional career opportunities within the built environment to venture into new technology-based career pathways, further cementing  Singapore’s role as a global technology hub for nurturing talents.

 

The recent exclusive look follows the go-to-market partnership announcement with Surbana Jurong in  October to deliver P4D to the global built environment sector. Both parties are in advanced negotiations with other developers in Singapore and internationally, leveraging P4D to design and deliver projects in the future.

 

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Government agencies like the Building and Construction Authority, Singapore Economic  Development Board and JTC Corporation support the vision of a collaborative ecosystem designed to streamline the processes from design to supply, increasing project development certainty and reducing the materials and waste produced with the use of kits-of-parts. JTC collaborated with  Lendlease to jointly develop design digitalisation tools that can automate preliminary industrial building design as Building Information Models (BIM). This function, which is built off P4D, allows for optimisation of the design process and enhanced coordination.

 

In addition, this initiative generates new job opportunities and enhances productivity in the built environment. At an industry level, coordinated and collective action is needed to reduce materials and waste, and consequently embodied carbon, and to deliver more sustainable outcomes for generations to come.

 

According to Richard Kuppusamy, Chief Product Officer and Head of Digital Asia, Lendlease Digital, “The existing approach to creating the built environment is unsustainable. P4D represents the possibilities we can achieve if we can reimagine how we build as an industry. We have a shared  responsibility to adopt a more concerted and collaborative approach enabled by the technology we  have today to build better and more sustainably.”

 

Junie Fo, Vice President and Head, Commercial &  Professional Services, Singapore Economic Development Board said, “P4D is an example of how local businesses and talent in the built environment sector can leverage advanced digital and collaborative tools to enhance productivity and advance sustainable practices. With Singapore as an ideal testbed for innovative digital solutions, we welcome more  like-minded companies to partner with our ecosystem and spearhead new initiatives that will shape  the future of our industries and create new digital roles.”

 

Caroline Yap, Managing Director, Global AI  Business, Google Cloud, adds, “Gen AI has the potential to dramatically transform our modern construction industry. Built entirely  on Google Cloud and Vertex AI, P4D is an AI-powered digital ecosystem and platform which has  the potential to increase the productivity, sustainability and profitability of the digital supply chain,  and in ways we’ve not seen before.”

 

1 Kit-of-parts refer to standardised prefabricated building components in modular dimensions which are applicable to various building typologies.

 

 

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Lendlease Unveils Podium for Development Digital Ecosystem to Build Better and Faster

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Reading Time: 3 minutes
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Lendlease recently announced that it will be partnering with Surbana  Jurong as the go-to-market partner to deliver Podium for Development (P4D) – a transformative digital ecosystem that connects developers, designers, and the supply chain, delivering high construction productivity and promoting sustainable building practices.

 

Traditionally, the design process requires months of detailed design work and engineering before the building can be drawn and documented to capture the full complexity of the design. After the back-and-forth between many parties in the design process, the plans are then tendered to find a builder. Often, a builder may suggest using different materials or components that do not match the exact design intent. This can lead to additional time and money spent on redesigning to accommodate these changes, resulting in wastage.

 

The inadequate communication and collaboration between stakeholders along the value chain creates design errors which accounted for 38% of construction disputes. Furthermore, only 31% of projects have managed to stay within 10% of their proposed budgets.1  The industry’s annual productivity growth has only increased by 1% over the past 20 years as compared to 2.8% for the total global economy while contributing 40% of the world’s total global greenhouse gas emissions.2

 

By harnessing design automation algorithms and computational capabilities within an open ecosystem, Lendlease aims to facilitate construction using prefabricated components directly supplied by manufacturers. This approach promotes Design for Manufacturing and Assembly  (DfMA), which is more productive and sustainable than traditional methods of construction.

Building from Reality

With P4D, Lendlease seeks to collaborate with other developers globally and unify these fragmented nodes in the building process into an open digital platform that accelerates the entire process from design to supply, enabling DfMA. The platform choreographs advanced computational algorithms to match design requirements with the supplier-defined kit-of-parts to generate building designs. These design models automatically account for building specifications under prevailing regulations such as identified land use, height restrictions and other planning parameters for residential, industrial, commercial and eventually,  mixed-use development applications.

 

P4D allows detailed building models to be automatically generated based on a menu of options which include a number of units for residential developments, the desired floor-to-ceiling height and loading limit for industrial applications and even the estimated cost of the project and timeframe. More importantly, it can generate a building based on the optimal components, and fit for purpose from suppliers. This provides confidence early in the design process which ensures greater accuracies and certainties right from the start.

Creating an ecosystem to drive sustainable outcomes for everyone

Lendlease is in advanced negotiations with other developers and building authorities in Singapore and elsewhere on leveraging P4D to design and deliver projects in the future. The partnership with  Surbana Jurong seeks to deliver this product – drawing on the rich experience and expertise of the wider Lendlease Digital ecosystem in Singapore, Silicon Valley, Sydney and Milan and support by the Economic Development Board of Singapore (EDB) – to the global built environment sector.

 

“As an industry, we need to be building better at speed and in scale. Our ambition for P4D is to re-imagine how we create by changing entrenched methodologies and behaviours. This is why we are working with like-minded partners such as Surbana Jurong and inviting other developers and players in the built environment industry to join us in this journey as we promote the best sustainable building practices that can be replicated and benefit other communities globally,” said Bill Ruh, Chief Executive Officer, Lendlease Digital.

 

“As a multidisciplinary global urban and infrastructure consultancy, Surbana Jurong is heavily vested in smarter ways of designing and engineering that cut costs and time, and optimise precious resources. P4D gives architects, designers and suppliers greater control to drive higher productivity in the built environment sector, as well as net zero and zero waste outcomes at the earliest stages of a project life cycle to reduce embodied carbon levels. We are excited about the prospect of collaborating with multiple project stakeholders on the cloud at the design stage. This is the next big step for the industry to bring Singapore’s Built Environment Industry Transformation  Roadmap to life,” added Yeo Choon Chong, ASEAN Chief Executive Officer,  Surbana Jurong.

 

Richard Kuppusamy, Chief Product Officer, Podium also chimed in, saying, “By generating a structural design in 15 to 20 minutes instead of the months involved in design using current methods, P4D leverages what is replicable and repeatable in building design via computational algorithms and AI. With the possibility of 70% of the building design being automated by P4D, human designers can focus their energy and efforts on more complex and subjective aspects of creativity.”

 

1 KPMG’s report ‘Climbing the curve’.

2 McKinsey Global Institute report – ‘Reinventing construction: A route to higher productivity’.