Leader: Are we smart enough to build smart cities?

For years, the discussions around “smart cities” ran ahead of the actual technology, and barely kept pace with our willingness to suspend disbelief. The discussions typically centred on cities that only existed in their promoters’ imagination (Masdar, PlanIt Valley in Portugal, Songdo in Korea) or demonstrated technologies, such as driverless cars or networked buildings, that were unproven and clearly pretty costly. And of course they were invariably presented in CGIs with an impossibly rosy glow.

In 2015, the technology has advanced considerably, and seems more in alignment with the aspirations. People attending the latest generation of “smart cities” conferences and beginning to think about integrating “smart” technology into their projects will already have Uber on their iPhones, or perhaps alert their social or professional network to their location by “checking in” on Swarm.

Of course, there’s still a degree of cynicism around smart cities. Smartphone travel apps? They already exist, but they haven’t done much to sort out commuter chaos at London Bridge station, or Bank Holiday snarl-ups on the motorways. 3D digital maps of cities to facilitate urban planning decisions? As one of the interviewees in this month’s cover feature says, imagining that is quite a stretch from hanging up planning notices on trees the way we do today.

But as Bristol shows, it is impossible for a UK city today to put a “smart” strategy at the centre of its development plans.  In Bristol, and other UK cities, “smart” technologies and open-source data are seen as the key to unlocking better outcomes across the board: better transport connectivity; leisure facilities; air quality; economic resilience.

Implementing those plans will require the direct and indirect involvement of the construction industry. Firstly, in creating the data infrastructure, the cables, ducts and masts. Secondly, in creating buildings that themselves are genuinely smart: smart enough, for a start, to make energy “performance gaps” a thing of the past. And thirdly, by having a co-ordinating role in bringing various partners together to deliver projects: the public and private sector stakeholders, energy companies and universities, telecoms companies and innovative start-ups.

So are we ready for this new direction in urban development? Clearly, the BIM agenda is introducing the industry to digitisation and data management. But its foundation stone, as with “smart cities”, is a mindset of openness, collaboration and silo-breaking.

But at the same time, there is the possibility that BIM, instead of bringing people together, instead creates its own walled silo of BIM professionals. There are many people, including our BIM Twitter Top 50, trying to ensure that doesn’t happen, and to resist the inherent tribalism of the industry. But if we are to deliver on the promise of BIM and smart cities, we will have to redouble our efforts to adopt new mindsets and approaches.

Elaine Knutt, editor