Dulux Trade has assembled a panel of leading industry experts to share their design insights and initiatives under the theme, ‘Future Proofing Design’ at RIBA London later this month. The event, on February 26, will incorporate a presentation revealing the insights underpinning the ColourFutures™ 2019 palettes – the annual AkzoNobel
Advances in AI applications are already causing revolutionary changes in the commercial real estate field, and we’ll continue to see a shift in the way real estate professionals do business in the years to come. With PropTech start-ups increasingly offering technologically innovative products and business strategies for the real estate
Leading British designer and manufacturer of quality fitted furniture, Daval, celebrate the versatile nature of its multi-form furniture which is able to translate from room to room … Envisaged as a key trend for 2019 home interiors, transformative furniture that is systematic and not defined by purpose will become a
Fast-growing office fitout and design company Saracen Interiors has won the contract to transform part of a major office building into co-working space at the heart of Dundee’s £1 billion waterfront regeneration project. Dundee One is a 50,000 sq ft landmark building, where work is due to start on Phase
Design Brighton, a four-day festival celebrating revolutionary urban design, has announced new dates of 01-04 April 2020. Festival Co-Director Sophie Law Smith explains: “Our original concept was to hold the festival in October this year, but a number of factors have led to us needing to change the dates to
Dulux Trade has assembled a panel of leading industry experts to share their design insights and initiatives under the theme, ‘Future Proofing Design’ at RIBA London later this month. The event, on February 26, will incorporate a presentation revealing the insights underpinning the ColourFutures™ 2019 palettes – the annual AkzoNobel snapshot of global current affairs and emerging macro design trends, distilled into separate and distinct colour palettes to inspire specifiers. Joining the discussion at RIBA HQ in Portland Place will be Rosemary Jenssen from Jenssen Architecture Ltd representing the ProCure 22 Framework; Louise Tod, independent colourist; Ted Szuman, head of innovation at AkzoNobel; Jim Ashley-Down, managing director at Waldmann Lighting plus Flavie Lowres and Mindy Hadi, Associate Director and Head of Social Research at BRE. The panel will discuss themes around the topic of future proofing design and incorporate the exploration of initiatives that put the occupants at the heart of the design brief. The discussion will highlight how, in a world dominated by new technology, design professionals can cultivate positive connections, wellbeing and productivity in the built environment. Against a backdrop of increasing budget constraints, this event will explore ways in which designers can deliver greater value for their clients. Capturing the emerging movement to optimize building design through enhanced occupant outcomes, this forum will enable design professionals to understand the significance of introducing a biophilic design application into office spaces as part of the BRE’s ground breaking research initiative. This discussion will also explain how the panel are harnessing and acting on research regarding the benefits of an occupant-centric approach to colour and design. Marking this as the base foundation for all future interior design briefs, they will uncover under-deployed innovations in lighting, surface materials and smart coatings that support ambitions for more sustainable buildings that enable us all to be more productive and to thrive at every stage of life – whether in education, pursuing careers or using the healthcare system. Attendees will then be given the opportunity to take part in an open question and answer session. Places are extremely limited, but accredited specifiers, designers and architects can book their place by emailing futureproofingdesign@democracypr.com by 22nd February. Now in its 16th year, the Dulux Trade ColourFutures™ palettes are selected to help professionals make choices for a wide variety of buildings with more confidence, providing support on all steps from inspiration through visualisation, product choice and application. Central to this is the Dulux Colour of the Year 2019, Spiced Honey™, a neutral shade that struck a chord with the experts during the forecasting workshop. Honey is associated with nourishment and energy and the imagery of bees themselves perfectly captured the idea of a caring, thriving community. The event is at RIBA, Portland Place, London, on February 26 from 9am-11am.
Advances in AI applications are already causing revolutionary changes in the commercial real estate field, and we’ll continue to see a shift in the way real estate professionals do business in the years to come. With PropTech start-ups increasingly offering technologically innovative products and business strategies for the real estate market, Instant Offices looks at some of the top predicted AI trends that PropTech companies will be bringing into the real estate market in the next two years: Augmented and virtual reality · Applications: VR can be used to provide customers with virtual tours, allowing prospective tenants and buyers to view properties on the other side of the globe, or even to get a look inside properties that haven’t been built yet. Augmented reality, which overlays virtual objects on top of a real-world environment, can help agents to enrich their in-person property tours. · Benefits: This technology makes it easier for agents to sell to clients anywhere in the world and gives clients confidenceto make a decision knowing exactly what they are buying or letting. · Insight: According to a 2018 VR survey, real estate will be one of the top drivers of investment in virtual and augmented reality technologies in the coming year. Biometrics · Applications: Technologies like voice commands and facial recognition are being used to improve the security in commercial buildings. · Benefits: Biometric technologies offer better safety and security for clients, which is especially useful for those who work with sensitive information. Bots · Applications: AI applications like chatbots can be made available to customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This helps commercial real estate agencies to provide clients around the world with readily available support, any time of the day or night. · Benefits: Using bots helps agents to provide customers with better accessibility, irrespective of their schedule or the customer’s time zone. Cryptocurrency and blockchain · Applications: Blockchain-based smart contracts are set to become more widely used in the world of commercial real estate. · Benefits: Blockchain can negate the need for any third-parties in a real estate transaction, while cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are also gaining traction, reducing the need for notaries, lawyers and title holders. Data analysis · Applications: AI can analyse huge amounts of data to help agents match the right properties to the right customers in a short space of time. · Benefits: Data analysis helps providers offer more targeted marketing and tailored solutions to their customers. · Insight: According to a 2016 Gartner report, at least 30% of companies globally will be using AI in at least part of their sales processes by 2020. Data visual tech · Applications: Drones can be used to capture footage of properties and their surroundings for use in virtual tours, and to produce videos of areas that are undergoing development or upgrades. · Benefits: Using visual data technologies, agents can provide customers with an in-depth look at potential properties and locations. Geolocation tech · Applications: AI draws critical data about properties from maps of their location. This data can be analysed and used to predict future changes and trends. For example, AI can use data about development plans in a geographical area to predict the price of property in that area. · Benefits: Geolocation tech can give agencies valuable insights into up-and-coming areas as well as trends in their prospective clients’ preferences. Internet of Things · Applications: IoT is everywhere, with more and more real-world items being equipped with sensors that can be read by Internet applications and translated into data. This applies to buildings too. · Benefits: IoT makes it possible to build “smarter” properties, which are tailored to the needs of those occupying them. · Insight: The Edge in Amsterdam is a 15-storey office building embedded with 28,000 sensors. It is widely regarded as the smartest building in the world. In a nutshell, AI helps to make real estate sales and rentals quicker and easier for customers and providers. The right AI application can save a lot of time and hassle all around by making the process more targeted and efficient, and by providing virtual support. Real-World Examples Here are some examples of how some companies around the world are using AI to transform commercial real estate: CityBldr, Seattle: CityBldr uses an AI platform to locate deals and rank properties based on their development potential. The AI can also estimate the anticipated return on investment of each property. BioConnect, Toronto: This company uses biometrics to improve and personalise building security. The platform identifies users based on unique physical qualities such as their face, eyes, heartbeat and fingerprints. It also offers a product that combines a dual-factor fingerprint and card lock system for data centre server cabinets. Skyline AI, Tel Aviv: Skyline is partnering with Greystone Labs to analyse key industry insights, which they plan to use to improve deal performance and the loan underwriting process. According to Research and Markets, AI revenue will reach $38.8 billion by the year 2025. With so many innovative applications helping to improve, customise and automate everyday business processes, it’s no wonder AI in real estate will continue to grow by leaps and bounds.
Leading British designer and manufacturer of quality fitted furniture, Daval, celebrate the versatile nature of its multi-form furniture which is able to translate from room to room … Envisaged as a key trend for 2019 home interiors, transformative furniture that is systematic and not defined by purpose will become a mainstream proposition for the modern homeowner and will be used to convert redundant space into a well-used, practical area in the home. For example, a mezzanine area with landing space is typically just a ‘walk-through’ which has little to no impact on your home or lifestyle. Rather than waste space, made-to-measure furniture is the ideal solution for turning dead space at the top of your stairs into a multi-functional storage area: that could also be coordinated with your bedroom furniture too! A great example of multi-form furniture that is well-designed and purposeful, is the pictured mezzanine furniture concept by Daval showing Harvard Angled-end Wardrobes with integrated window seat. The full length mirrors naturally extend space assigned for dressing and beautification, typically reserved for the master bedroom or en suite bathroom, and the comfortable window seat provides a new area in the home to relax and unwind. The simple shaker design of Harvard is shown in warming Stone Grey which creates a neutral furniture arrangement for storing surplus garments, shoes, winter bedding or function as a practical play area that discreetly organises your kid’s toys, accessories and extra clothing. If you have the luxury of a large entry area, but unsure how to make it feel less vacant and more welcoming for family and friends then consider a Bootroom with bespoke coat racks, umbrella stands and shelving to store obstruent shoes and bags. The Dove Grey and Charcoal colouring provides the perfect contrast and texture against the Rough-Cut Oak details. Calm and contemporary in style, this hallway concept in Salcombe Furniture is actually featured in the Daval Kitchen Collection: proving that multi-form furniture really can translate across different rooms in the home, all the while linking one space to another through design. Highly practical, multi-form furniture is able to adapt to your environment, home architecture and space, and will be this year’s answer to maximising space and utility in the home. Fitted furniture is helping to change the opportunities for whole-house coordination and Como by Daval is a great option when needing to synchronise your living space alongside your kitchen and/or dining furniture. Creating a dedicated area for housing your TV and other media equipment, this made-to-measure Como sideboard in Gloss Stone has an unrestrictive design aesthetic which bridges the gap between kitchen and living area for a true ‘Multi-form’ furniture design scheme. Daval British fitted Furniture Collections are made-to-order and made-to-measure with prices starting from as a little as £3,000+vat. For further information please contact: Daval Furniture │ t 01484 848500 │ www.daval-furniture.co.uk │ Daval House, Spa Fields Industrial Estate, New Street, Slaithwaite, Huddersfield, HD7 5BB
Fast-growing office fitout and design company Saracen Interiors has won the contract to transform part of a major office building into co-working space at the heart of Dundee’s £1 billion waterfront regeneration project. Dundee One is a 50,000 sq ft landmark building, where work is due to start on Phase One, the fit-out of 8,800 sq ft on the top floor, this month (February) with completion expected in May. Saracen Interiors has been involved in space planning the project for the past six months. The interiors company, which saw a 30 per cent leap in sales in 2018, was approached to space plan the new co-working space for owners Jute Properties. Saracen worked closely with the Jute team and residential interior specialist Salvesen Graham to create high quality thoughtful, design-led co-working and private office space, coupled with stunning views over the River Tay. Michael Page, Director at Saracen Interiors, said: “We are extremely proud to be involved in this huge and inspiring regeneration project for Dundee One. We have been heavily involved both in the space planning and in delivering the overall functionality of the space, and we were delighted to then be appointed to complete this exciting build.” The Grade A office building is a prominent feature on Dundee’s waterfront, whose regeneration has included a new rail station and a V&A Museum, officially opened by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in January this year (2019). The transformation of Dundee City Waterfront, which encompasses 240 hectares of development land stretching 8km alongside the River Tay, is a 30-year project that began in 2001. Its vision is to transform the City of Dundee into a world leading waterfront destination for visitors and businesses through the enhancement of its physical, economic and cultural assets. Forward-thinking Jute Properties completed the purchase of the building in February 2018 recognising Dundee’s potential, with plans to create a mix of traditional leased offices and flexible serviced offices, redefining the workplace to create an environment suited to modern working lifestyles and agile business. They are well on their way to achieving their targets with several new high-quality international tenants taking occupation and demand and pre-lets for their co-working space high. Private fixed office spaces for concentrated bursts of work and a series of formal meeting rooms and phone booths sit alongside luxurious social spaces designed for engaging with both colleagues and clients. Beautifully designed breakout areas and a coffee bar, with views over the dramatic waters of the Tay, allow you to step away from your desk, and generate the great ideas which will drive your business forward. Combined, all this adds up to an agile work environment where businesses thrive, and employees can truly feel at home. The owners announced they were responding to growing demand for co-working spaces and serviced offices. The co-working and flexible serviced office sector is the fastest growing commercial property sector worldwide and this will be a first Grade A serviced office for Dundee. Saracen is working on similar projects in other UK cities, as office building owners and co-working companies move towards more flexible workspaces. Demand for refits to respond to the growth in flexible working has been one of the reasons that the interiors company has grown rapidly in recent years. It is forecasting turnover in 2019 that will be close to double its sales volume last year. It is working on projects across the UK from its head office in Aldershot, Hampshire, and its growing northern division managed from its Manchester office. The company’s northern division has seen rapid growth with projects in Leeds, Sunderland and other locations in the north of England as well as Scotland. Saracen Interiors is the official workspace partner for clients including Dimension Data, Aggreko in London and Newsquest Media Group for whom it has worked on projects nationwide. Other large clients include Creative Foods Europe and Tata Communications. www.saraceninteriors.com
Design Brighton, a four-day festival celebrating revolutionary urban design, has announced new dates of 01-04 April 2020. Festival Co-Director Sophie Law Smith explains: “Our original concept was to hold the festival in October this year, but a number of factors have led to us needing to change the dates to April 2020. One element influencing the decision was to wait for the restoration to be completed at our host venue, Brighton Dome’s Corn Exchange and Studio Theatre. “We’ve been delighted with the response from sponsors, partners and collaborators and we’re excited to be able to announce several elements of the festival – our programme is shaping up nicely!” Andrew Comben, Chief Executive, Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival, said: “We are pleased to be working with Design Brighton on their inaugural festival. As Brighton’s leading event for the urban environment, we are keen to accommodate Design Brighton and we look forward to welcoming them into our newly refurbished space next year.” Two key partners have been announced for the festival; mixed-use developer First Base, owners of the Edward Street Quarter development in Brighton, and Building Live, which will host an industry specific event during the festival. Barry Jessup, Director of First Base, said: “We’re thrilled to partner with Design Brighton. The city is undergoing a huge amount of development and this festival will help to not only put Brighton’s world class urban design on the map but will also bring together visionaries to discuss how we can all collaborate and share knowledge to improve the built environment for all.” One of the exhibitors already confirmed is a new building system by ICF Southern dubbed the ‘Naked House’ which will showcase fixtures, fittings and products and act as a networking hub for attendees throughout the festival. The programme will include: Wed 01 – Thu 02 April: Exhibition at Brighton Dome Corn Exchange plus two conference sessions per day focused on the history of urban design and how that can shape current challenges faced by cities across the world. Fri 03 April: The day will kick-off with a networking breakfast followed by a panel of speakers discussing the future of urban development with a Q&A session. Sat 04 April: The exhibition will be open to the public on this day, with the aim to provide information regarding home renovation and showcase local companies. This day will also include an educational element to engage children in the construction industry. For more information, please visit www.designbrighton.org.
