Better use of space—Reimagining building use

Report on a roundtable for industry professionals
December 2016

One of the principal themes of the shift to a sustainable economy, at least in the developed world, is ‘dematerialisation,’—less added value from physical ‘stuff’ and more from human skills and ingenuity. The built environment could be one of the sectors that contributes most to this trend—and one of the sectors where there are most opportunities for competitive advantage based on it. These opportunities will arise because of improvements in technology, but also because of improvements in the way buildings are used.

The roundtable was held on 15 December 2016 and focused on the latter. Attended by representatives of developers and industry specialists, it was co-organised by CUSP,  Igloo Regeneration and the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC).

After looking at range of ideas and current initiatives The World Future Council (part of the CUSP consortium) identified three areas for a possible project, described briefly below:

• Expand the market for high density housing
• Use IT to facilitate use of currently unused or underused space for office work
• Design a building in which the same space is used by residents and office workers at different times.

Contact

For enquiries about the report, please email charles.seaford@worldfuturecouncil.org.