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Dr Didem Gürdür Broo, Department of Engineering 

Future Studies on the impact of COVID-19 on the built environment

The future of the built environment is digital and data-centric. The Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB), established in partnership with Cambridge University in 2017, supports the transformation of the UK construction sector using digital technologies to better plan, build, maintain and use infrastructure.

While working towards the realization of this digitalisation effort, it is important to look for the changes around different domains, to follow trends/uncertainties and imagine different future scenarios, so that future decisions are enabled by reliable data. This future thinking is especially important nowadays when the world is facing unexpected difficulties due to the COVID-19.

The CDBB researchers are now contributing to a study to understand the possible post-pandemic futures for the built environment. This study firstly started by looking at how the built environments in Britain look like in 2040 before the pandemic. Now, in addition to examining different effects of rapid technological advancements, climate change, sustainable development goals, Brexit, data economy, and automation/robotization: we are also considering the COVID-19 to the economy, governance, technology, infrastructure, transportation, people and society for built environment.

The study is using scenario analysis and scenario planning methodology which have proven to be particularly helpful in situations of great uncertainty and dis-continuity. And with this study, we aim to use scenarios to make sense of complex situations related to the future of the built environment. This will help to raise awareness of different future-alternatives, as well as of the possibility that these future alternatives can be shaped by different strategies that we can start to work on today.

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