Page 10 - RC21 EDGE Summer Issue

Intelligent Buildings
QUADREAL: ENABLING DIGITAL BUILDINGS WITH SCALABLE CONNECTIVITY
THANO LAMBRINOS
SVP, Digital Buildings, Experiences & Innovation QuadReal
THE MOST RECOGNIZABLE BUILDINGS in the world—whether the soaring Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the historic Empire State Building in New York City, or the iconic Commerce Court towers in Toronto—all share the same beginnings. They were built on a foundation designed to stand the test of time; a foundation of concrete and rebar that enabled them to ascend, bringing the vision of these buildings to life.
Over the past several years in the commercial real estate industry, we’ve been inundated with the promise of smart and digital buildings transforming the way we work, live, shop and play. We see aspirational videos of offices automatically adapting
to our preferences, and building operators having real- time actionable data streamed to mobile devices in the palm of their hand. Yet, despite the pervasiveness of these marketing pieces, the majority of CRE owners, operators and occupiers have yet to realize any of these benefits.
Why?
One of the major reasons is that most buildings lack
the digital foundation (replace concrete and rebar with fiber, networking and wireless communications) required to support the connectivity and data flow that make these transformational use cases possible. Moreover,
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