Review 79th Swiss Real Estate Conference: "Digitalisation in urban and real estate development".

The speakers at the 79th Swiss Real Estate Meeting were the geomatics expert and software developer Lisa Stähli from the company ArcGIS Urban, architect and civil engineer Patrick Pick from Drees & Sommer Switzerland and Alar JostHead of Service Unit BIM/LCDM at Pom+ and member of the board of the Initiative Bauen Digital Schweiz.

Digital settlement development

Stähli presented to the event guests the browser-based software tool ArcGIS Urban, which will be publicly launched in 2019 and is primarily intended to support cities and city administrations in urban settlement development. Here, digital zoning maps are possible through translation into the data model. There, usage zones, special zones as well as building typologies can be mapped. These in turn can form the basis for comparing different development scenarios in architectural and planning competitions, for example - both qualitatively and quantitatively. "Early adopters of this new digital technology include Geneva with its PAV project, the US city of Boston and the Swedish municipality of Uppsala.

"Adding real value"

Pick then showed what experience has already been gained in the market with BIM (Building Information Modeling) and where the further journey could go. BIM is a "facilitator for many other things", he said, emphasising that a good level of expertise has already been built up in this area in Germany. However, the planning and construction processes, which have become very complex, remain challenging. It is important to be able to transfer the digital data to operations and thus make the "digital twin" usable throughout the entire real estate cycle, thus creating real added value.

Step-by-step plan for Switzerland

Jost stated that much in connection with BIM was a "question of mindset". He also noted a "generation problem" here, with younger people being much more open to the topic. In future, this would also have to be reflected more clearly in the courses of study at universities, especially with regard to interdisciplinary demands and requirements. With the "Step-by-Step Plan Switzerland", a valid roadmap for the digital transformation of the construction industry in four steps is now available, said Jost. The biggest obstacle is the "federal fragmentation of Swiss construction law".

"Integrative systems are needed"

In the subsequent discussion led by moderator Christian Kraft, Lisa Stähli said that, from a technical point of view, a great deal is already possible today. However, the question arises as to what is actually useful in the end. In addition, the broad use of digital tools is too often hindered by high barriers to entry, such as overly complicated handling. In addition, integrative systems are needed. "In general, it would be nice if there were a standard for building data, but this is probably illusory."

Data, data, data instead of location, location, location

Patrick Pick pointed out that it must be made clear "where the benefits of data, data, data lie". In the digital collection of information, each application must be clearly broken down to its real benefit, according to Pick. Digital solutions make sense especially for large construction projects and urban development projects. One of the advantages here is that visualizations in advance help to explain projects better and also to arouse more understanding among the population.

Groundwork for digitization

For Alar Jost, a Common Data Model would certainly be the desirable answer to the fragmentation in Swiss building law. But this would hardly be feasible in the medium term. A bottom-up approach is probably the more promising model here: "Building information should be brought together automatically in order to be able to make better decisions on this basis. It already helps a lot if a lot of portfolio data is digitized first and the portfolio owners have all existing documents scanned, for example".

Man and machine - hand in hand

In his closing remarks, moderator Christian Kraft pointed out that the many different systems and collections should not result in a "data chaos". It might also make sense, for example, to aim for a "BIM light" concept for existing buildings in order to lend more emphasis to the digitalization of the Swiss building stock. On the other hand, he took the wind out of the sails of a total automation of all processes in the real estate lifecycle model: "In the future, I see more of a hybrid human-machine model," says Kraft.

• The 80th Swiss Real Estate Meeting with the topic "Traditional real estate investments put to the test" will take place on 15 September 2020. Registration link for the event here.