Lendlease invests $40 mil to spearhead digitalisation in built environment sector

/ EdgeProp Singapore |

September 17, 2020 6:00 AM SGT

SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - International property group Lendlease has committed $40 million to set up a new product development centre in Singapore. The innovation centre, which is supported by the Economic Development Board (EDB), will focus on contributing towards the digital transformation of the local property and construction sector.

The product development centre will be co-located with Lendlease’s regional office in csuites, a co-working space by Lendlease in Paya Lebar Quarter (PLQ). PLQ is a mixed-use development by Lendlease, and comprises a retail mall, three Grade-A office blocks, and a residential block.

The product development centre is slated to open next month and Lendlease says it will hire 50 local technology application developers in the first year of operations. According to Tony Lombardo, CEO Asia at Lendlease, at least one in five of the new hires will be recent graduates.

“We are very excited to have the support of EDB to propel the built environment sector’s transition to the digital economy and position Singapore as a global innovation hub that leads the market in automating the creation of tomorrow’s smart buildings,” says Lombardo.

He adds that the construction and property sectors in Singapore are at a “critical inflection point” in the overall industrial development. “We are confident that the success of our digitalisation efforts, supported by the city state’s best-in-class infrastructure, will leave a lasting impact on how we shape, construct and future-proof the built world,” he says.

BLD CSUITES BY LENDLEASE - EDGEPROP SINGAPORE

Lendlease is opening a new product development centre at its regional office in Singapore. (Picture: Samuel Isaac Chua/The Edge Singapore)

Dawn Lim, vice-president and head of commercial & professional services at EDB, says that preparing for the future of the construction industry means “adopting a Design for Manufacturing and Assembly mindset, changing the way we look at construction as we move towards Industry 4.0 — shifting from labour-intensive to skilled-based ways of working”.

This means placing emphasis on urbanisation and placemaking, and ensuring that the built environment feature the best in safety, health and well-being of all residents and users, says Lim.

“The Product Development Centre by Lendlease will add exciting digital capability to the built environment ecosystem. This will create new jobs in the built environment sector that a wide range of talent, from seasoned professionals to new entrants to the workforce, can aspire towards,” she says.

First-to-market digital platform

According to Lendlease, its new product development centre will introduce a suite of digital products and services that leverages a new digital property lifecycle platform it has just unveiled, called Lendlease Podium. The digital platform aims to simplify the various interdependencies in the property development and real estate industries.

“This is a step towards autonomous capabilities to connect all of our built environments, from the home and workspace, to buildings and communities, and eventually throughout the city,” says Pankaj Srivastava, chief technology officer and senior vice president of digital technology, engineering & delivery at Lendlease.

Srivastava says that Lendlease Podium is a first-to-market property lifecycle platform that utilises digital environments to trial technologies that can improve a built environment’s overall efficiencies. Lendlease Podium will digitalise and streamline the various interconnected supply chains involved in construction and property development.

“Lendlease Podium is an operating system for real estate, which allows us to harness the power of data-driven insights in everything from creating buildings to improving operational efficiency, sustainability, and provide the best user experiences,” says Richard Kuppusamy, Lendlease’s head of digital integration.

This will unlock efficiencies across the entire design, construction, and operating model of developments, and will also achieve the best outcomes in terms of safety and sustainability targets, says Srivastava.

Lombardo says the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is quickening the adoption of smart technologies around the world by at least five years, adding that Lendlease sees Singapore as an excellent test-bed for innovative solutions.

“There has been a lot of progress made in Singapore’s construction sector in becoming more modular in terms of designing buildings. But the next decade will be focused on design and automating construction,” says Lombardo.

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