Reimagining How We Design and Build: An Innovation Lab with the Center for Innovation in the Design and Construction Industries (CIDCI)

Design and construction are primed for radical change in the next decade. Connected job sites and virtual building walkthroughs are shifting how companies, consumers, and employees interact with the industries. Machine learning, predictive analytics, and materials innovation will continue to drive change more quickly than we expect or are prepared to accommodate. At the same time, companies today are charged with going beyond designing products, services, experiences and customer transformations to redesign entire systems, effectively integrating business and society and creating shared societal and economic value. Sara Beckman and I, in partnership with the CIDCI created a 3-day Innovation Lab, to provide industry representatives with a deep dive into growing technology and societal trends and to imagine the ways in which the industry will evolve in response. In total 35 people - project managers, builders, owners, architects, and engineers – came together to address the following questions:

• How might we facilitate greater information transparency across industry players?

• How might we attract and retain amazing talent to the design and construction industry?

• How might we respond to the labor shortage in the construction industry?

• How might we reconcile the apparent competing demands between business outcomes and user needs? 

• How might we consistently act like one organization on projects? 

• How might we motivate increased investment in sustainability?

Design Education // Systems Thinking // Executive Education

Partners: Center for Innovation in the Design and Construction Industry