Welcome to the September edition of Digital Construction Today
Technology continues to gallop ahead and there is no shortage of evangelists who will tell us we must jump in and embrace the seemingly unlimited – almost magical – transformation on offer or risk being left behind for good.
There is no doubt that technology has a key role to play in building a better built environment but is there also a risk that, gripped by this gold rush fever, we rush in and ignore potential vulnerabilities, even dangers, that we will lament in the future?
In our cover story, Dr Anna Jackman of the University of Reading and Dr Paul Cureton of Lancaster University, authors of new guidance from the Royal Town Planning Institute on the growing use of drones, urge planners to take a proactive stance in considering how they can shape a successful – and socially beneficial – role for drones in the built environment.
Meanwhile, with OpenAI hitting the headlines after its agents broke out of its sandbox environment and hacked into the Hugging Face platform, Dr Aybars Tuncdogan of King’s University London examines the cyber capabilities of AI models.
He cautions that while cyber AI models will be an integral element of critical infrastructure protection going forward, access to those very models will also create a number of vulnerabilities and threats.
There is much more besides. Here is a selection from this edition:
1. Why planners need to be proactive about drones
With the use of drones increasing across the built environment, Dr Anna Jackman and Dr Paul Cureton discuss new guidance published by the Royal Town Planning Institute that urges planners to proactively consider how they can shape a successful and socially beneficial future for the technology.
2. Risk in real life: What 1,000 NEC contracts reveal about project resilience
Dr Stuart Kings, co-author of NEC3/4 Practical Solutions and technical director at Sypro, explores what data from almost 1,000 NEC projects reveals about effective risk management.
3. Has AI killed the approved supplier list?
There was a time when getting on a main contractor’s approved supplier list was critical – and once you were on it, you tended to stay there. However, Paul Houston, co-founder of Catalyst Marketing Agency, warns that AI-assisted research is now rapidly rebuilding many construction and manufacturing procurement shortlists from scratch.
4. Cyber AI will protect critical infrastructure – and cybercriminals will try to steal it
Extensive cyber capabilities of new AI models are compelling cybersecurity professionals to reconsider how we can reliably protect critical infrastructure, writes Dr Aybars Tuncdogan, associate professor in digital innovation and information security at King’s College London.
5. Engineering for operations: Going from security to insight
Tertius Wolfaardt, architecture and engineering manager for South Asia-Pacific at Axis Communications, discusses why security systems must be embedded at the earliest stages of data centre design to support uptime, efficiency and trust.
6. Evolving BIM standards don’t make today’s training obsolete
As discussions around proposed revisions to ISO 19650 continue, some organisations may be questioning if now is the time to invest in training. But Mike Tofton, BIM and digital construction lead at the BRE Academy, says the fundamentals of good information management have not changed.
7. Building a workforce for the next era of construction
Construction faces rising retirements, while at the same time AI is reshaping the skills the industry needs. Arman Gukasyan, founder and CEO of Revizto, argues that rather than tackling these issues separately, the answer lies in a connected workforce strategy.
8. BIM4Water Roadmap 2026-2030: From vision to delivery
Martin Gooch of BIM4Water discusses the forum’s newly approved Roadmap, which sets out key measures to support its core mission of leading the digital transformation of the water sector through better information management.
9. 8 ways AI can be used in commercial construction to reduce disputes and litigation
Construction companies that embrace AI could gain a valuable competitive edge by reducing the likelihood of project disputes, writes James F Gallagher, principal of Resolution Management Consultants.
10. Why pumps need to become part of a building’s digital DNA
Digitalisation, BIM, connected systems and increasingly sophisticated data platforms are changing how projects are conceived and managed. But are all the components within a building being brought into this digital journey? By Wayne Rose, chief executive of the British Pump Manufacturers Association.
