Last year we committed to supporting the Housing sector with 3 high level annual research projects. After consulting with our Members, the groups set to work exploring possible answers to the top three strategic challenges most commonly foreseen in the sector. 10 months later…and each group has come together on multiple occasions to hold important conversations, debates and develop their final research papers.
Members voted for the following in October 2020 and the 3 topics are;
- Climate Change Solutions – How do we move to a zero carbon position? How do we reorganise our priorities to treat this like a compliancy issue, not a political or cultural one?
- Maintaining Building Safety – How do we be more demanding? How do we legislatively enforce quality through our appointment of reputable organisations?
- “BIM for Asset Management?” – How can we break away from “the norm” and utilise technology and the “new normal” to drive efficiency through technology and remote management of maintenance.
Each group has been Chaired by a sector leader in their field and supported by a variety of stakeholders from our network – including colleagues from housing associations, local authorities, suppliers and consultants. We’d like to say a big thank you to all those that have taken the time to support our HOW research groups.
Each group has now reached a similar stage – they’ve set the focus, design and detail for their research papers and each will be finalised and ready to share with our network in early 2022.
We caught up from Marc Baines, who facilitated our BIM research project alongside Chair, Bola Abisogun OBE, on how they have got on –
‘It’s been emotional’… were the words of Bola as we closed our fourth and final meeting of the year.
And, I agree. Not in a sad or disappointing way, but in terms of the way we’ve bought a group of people together from a variety of backgrounds who are so passionate about BIM and making a difference. There is often so much energy in the virtual room. The fact we’ve got such support means every minute of each meeting is filled with an idea, an example or an article. And, we’ve shared the not-so-good examples that our out there too.
Our ambition to create a useful interactive document / roadmap really gathered pace over the last few months – so much so our final document will need more work over the coming weeks. But, that’s ok – because it’ll be brilliant. We’ve got a bronze, silver, gold standard. We’ve also built a web page for our interactive document – and as a working group we’ll be sharing this far and wide. Yet we’ve not even scratched the surface on our long term service and support.
So, credit to my colleagues. Thanks for all your input because we’ve had a blast – as I write from a personal perspective I’ve learnt so much from a passionate and influential group of people.
This journey has just begun. It’s not over of course, the conversation has only just started in reality. Come along to the annual conference on 10 November and hear our disruptive thoughts. Also look out for our final paper – due by the New Year.
We’ll be picking this conversation back up, that’s for sure – so watch this space.’
