Digital Built Environment

Our Stories

On 30th September 2022, the Centre for Digital Built Britain completes its mission to advance the digital transformation of the built environment. We have been developing materials to celebrate the foundational work that has been done over the last five years, highlighting our learnings, and...

Corner reflectors in the workshop, Krisztina for scale

Research Profile - Application of satellite technology in infrastructure monitoring

5 October 2022

Satellite Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) monitoring to investigate large earth movements and monitor city-scale deformation is well established. The use of InSAR to monitor single infrastructure assets has been less well understood. Yet improvements in the achievable resolution mean the range of possible...

Precision Engineered Timber - Digital design and delivery of healthier schools

As of 2019, the UK Government has committed to a “presumption in favour” of off-site construction for procurement of all new buildings by all key government departments. This multi-pronged research programme set out to show how timber can meet one specific public procurement need—more school...

Research Profile - Precision Engineered Timber – Digital design and delivery of healthier schools

22 September 2022

Engineered timber offers a cost-effective solution to the UK’s building needs, improving construction productivity and performance. Combining digital design and off-site manufacturing, engineered-timber buildings can be efficiently and sustainably built, operated and maintained, and provide pleasant facilities for those...

Research Profile - Staffordshire Bridges – long-term performance monitoring using fibre optic sensors

22 September 2022

A major rail upgrade programme to remove a bottleneck on the West Coast Main Line saw collaboration between Atkins, Laing O’Rourke, Volker Rail and Network Rail. The Stafford Area Improvement Programme included the construction of 10 new bridges designed by Atkins using Building Information Modelling (BIM) from the outset...

Digital Twin Journeys: the end of the road, or just the beginning?

29 March 2022

The Digital Twin Journeys workstream has taken world leading research and turned it into accessible and useful information to enable those who are just starting out on their digital twin journeys to get ahead. We have learnt about more than just innovative technologies and dtj_final_thumbnail.jpg their implementation, we...

Title card for Teaching a Computer to See video

Digital Twin Journeys: Teaching a Computer to See

25 March 2022

To asset owners and managers, understanding how people move through and use the built environment is a high priority, enabling better, more user-focused decisions. However, many of the methods for getting these insights can feel invasive to users of the built environment. The latest output from Digital Twin Journeys looks...

Driving the digital transformation of the construction sector

23 March 2022

Launched today (23 March) our Information Management Roadmap is designed to set out on one page how we are driving the digital transformation of the construction sector and contributing to the achievement of the Transforming Construction Challenge outcomes. With links to a selection of the key tools, reports produced and...

Sakthy with a corner reflector for making assets more reflective to satellites

Digital Twin Journeys: Digital Twins ...from SPACE!

22 March 2022

We all want the built environment to be safe and to last. However, minor movements over time from forces such as subsidence can impact how well our assets perform. It can also make connecting and modifying assets harder if they have shifted from the position in which they were built. If the assets are remote or hard to...

Get started with start-ups

9 March 2022

Henry Fenby-Taylor, the Centre for Digital Built Britain’s Head of Information Management explores the start-up ecosystem in construction and how a new report from the Construction Innovation Hub can help those looking to set up or invest in start-ups. Innovation in the built environment has never been more important. The...