CONSTRUCTION IN THE CLOUD
The result of this will be a more democratic consultation process and closer engagement with residents when it comes to doing everything from scheduling the best time for site deliveries to sharing environmental impact studies . Take it a step further : project teams can also leverage the power of the crowd to help in the planning and design of a project , allowing teams to crowd-source answers to tough design challenges in dense urban environments .
The power of cloud-powered crowdsourcing will also have a profound impact on funding projects in the future , as we see the rise of the ‘ citizen builder ’. With many municipal governments facing restrictions on capital expenditure , ensuring there is sufficient social and economic infrastructure to enable a city to remain competitive means exploring alternative ways of funding projects .
Crowd funding is already well established in sectors like manufacturing , where the proverbial ‘ two guys in a garage ’ can raise finance for a new product . So why not scale up for buildings and infrastructure ? Can you imagine a future where the end users of , in particular social infrastructure , are both involved in the process of determining , as a community , which infrastructure to build , then jointly funding it via a large number of small contributions ? This would create a new era of localism enabled by cloud technology .
Wakening the city with the Internet of Things ( IoT ) In tomorrow ’ s cities , IoT sensor technology will provide a valuable feedback mechanism for asset performance and use , opening the door to new ways of creating and designing buildings and infrastructure . The net result is likely to be a much tighter alignment between supply and demand across many dimensions . For example feedback on occupancy levels , energy performance , water usage , passenger journeys and more , will garner more informed decisions during the building planning process for subsequent assets .
Collectively , combining data taken from these devices with other data sources , like demographic and economic data , might enable contractors to improve forecasting future demand patterns for their
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