Join us on this month’s episode of Built Environment Matters as Lucy Homer, European Head of Integrated Solutions at Lendlease, discusses centralisation, the importance of teamwork, overcoming industry inefficiency, and how architects in our digital future could find themselves acting as artisan curators of standardised systems.
‘Developing technologies is easy, changing a business culture and an industry culture is the hard bit.’ - Lucy Homer
To learn more about Bryden Wood's Design to Value philosophy, visit www.brydenwood.com. You can also follow Bryden Wood on LinkedIn.
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Episode Transcript
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Credits (00:09):
Hello, welcome to Built Environment Matters, a monthly
podcast brought to you by BrydenWood, an international company
of technologists, designers,architects, engineers and
analysts working for a betterbuilt environment Bryden Wood
would believe in Design to Valueto cut carbon drive efficiency,
save time, make beautiful placesand build a better future.
Paul O'Neill (00:33):
Hello, and welcome to this edition of Built
Environment Matters the BrydenWood podcast. I'm Paul O'Neill,
Architectural Board Director atBryden Wood. And this month,
we're joined by Lucy Homer. Lucyis European Head of Integrated
Solutions at Lendlease, amultinational construction
property and infrastructurecompany. She has an industry
(00:53):
leading team of globallyconnected experts whose aim is
to promote unparalleled andindustry leading opportunities
to stay ahead of the curve andcapitalise on project outcomes.
This global group has been setup to drive productivity and
efficiencies across the wholebusiness, in conjunction with
Lendlease's overall digitalstrategy, Lucy's intention is to
(01:15):
collaborate across the globalLendlease business creating
innovations especially aroundalternative materials supporting
their sustainability agenda. Shehas a wide remit across the
European region, with projectsranging in value from 20 million
to 1.6 billion pounds. Lucy isalso an active spokesperson for
(01:35):
the industry, particularly whenit comes to young recruits and
female staff. Lucy won theLifetime Achievement Award at
the European Women inConstruction and Engineering
Awards in 2016. In 2018, she wonthe Lendlease global Employee
Excellence Award for Diversityand Inclusion. Outside of work,
Lucy is an abstract landscapepainter, and has just moved
(01:57):
house to a great two star listedproperty, which she is currently
renovating, including a new artstudio in an old dairy. Lucy,
your current role is the Head ofIntegrated Solutions at
Lendlease. And for people whodon't know Lendlease, or
yourself, could you tell us alittle bit about your company,
and also about your role there.
Lucy Homer (02:17):
I will try to keep that as succinct an answer as
possible. Lendlease is a globalorganisation based in Australia.
And it's an unusual organisationjust in terms of what it covers.
So there's a lot of contractordevelopers out there, and I'm
sure that everyone is very awareof our competitors in that
space. And not only the sort ofmultiplex types, the also
(02:40):
Australian base, but many otherpeople as well. And probably in
the UK, it's more eithercontractors or developers that
we would consider ourcompetition. But unusually, the
bit that sort of sets Lendleaseapart, the bit that probably
interests me a little bit more,as there's two other parts to
Lendlease that people areperhaps aware of. So it's a
major sort of part of thestrategies that we also invest
(03:01):
our own money. So a lot of ourown developments are actually
funded, mainly in part, usuallyabout 50% through our own
Lendlease capital. There is noother company that does, that's
another company that has theinvestment side, the development
side and the construction side,we also then do operate some of
our buildings and precincts aswell. And again, that's
(03:23):
something else that sort of setsus apart. So we are the only
company that we have seen longrunning sort of
developer/contractor that reallydoes truly have end to end
engagement and buildings. Andthat sort of ties quite nicely
into all the topics I knowyou'll want to talk about, which
is really our overarching sortof digital strategy. So for
those of you who do sort offollow such things, we you know,
(03:44):
we have set up a digitalbusiness in Australia, which is
called P odium. And that reallyis to take advantage because we
have this competitive advantageof having the whole life cycle,
what we're trying to do is tobuild either our own software
and develop our own software totake advantage of that end to
end lifecycle. So it is anunusual company. And it's much
(04:04):
broader than perhaps what yousort of see if you work with
this either as a developerclient, or if you're, you know,
if people are working with thissort of from an external
construction perspective, westill do all the normal things,
but we do lots of other thingstoo. And perhaps those things we
don't talk about quite as muchas the more normal things. So
Lendlease is based in Australia,but we also operate in America,
(04:27):
Asia and in Europe. And we focuson gateway cities. So we have 15
identified gateway cities aroundthe world. And that is part of
our overall strategy which isabout urban regeneration at
scale. So in London that isfocused around Elephant and
Castle, IQL, which is thedevelopment which is just on the
(04:50):
site of the old Olympic Park.
And then the new things in thepress that you will have read
about Smithfield in Birmingham,Euston, High Road West,
Thamesmead So all the thingsthat are sort of coming up in
London so we've got asignificant pipeline in Europe
and the other places we work inEurope are predominantly Italy
at the moment. So we identifiedMilan as a gateway city. And so
(05:10):
we were doing a huge amount ofdevelopment work in Milan as
well. So that was Lendlease,sorry, then you want me.
Architect by background, as yousaid, and Paul and I went, I
went to Sheffield, and Ipractised for, I think, probably
15 years as an architect, I sawBBC Broadcasting House, which is
where the news comes from everynight I worked originally for
(05:34):
Richard McCormack, and McCormackJones and Pritchard for five
years, and then I was the onlyperson when McCormack Jones and
Pritchard were removed from thatproject. I then went and was the
only person who finished theproject working for Sheppard
Robson who took over until I sawthat project from planning all
the way through to be the personthat was embarrassingly having
(05:55):
to curtsy on live BBC TV. So Iam not scared of anything. This
podcast is nothing you know,when you're when you're a BBC TV
being presented to the queen asthe architect of a building, and
you've got to curtsy that'spretty scary stuff. That was 10
years of my life to the BBC hugeportion of my career. And I
suppose what I sort of thoughtwas would you do after a
(06:18):
building like that? So thatyeah, that's a once in a
lifetime opportunity. It wasincredible. It saw me from
assistant sort of architect allthe way through to project
director and it was awesome. Ithen was approached by as it was
Bovis Lendlease several times togo over to work for them. And
suddenly, they've been thecontractor on the BBC. So I
should say that I said no forabout two years. And then the
(06:40):
person who was heading up designmanagement at that time, who had
been in the job a long timeactually decided to retire. And
so at that point, I had anotherconversation. And I decided that
if I was going to go and try it,it was good to go in and shape
it to all I thought it could beand should be. And so I went in
originally to look after Londonsort of design management for
(07:03):
the construction business, wevery quickly sort of took over
everything in the UK. And thenwe started looking at how could
we do this better. So one of thethings I really missed what is I
think, quite interesting aboutBryden Wood is I always really
miss not having a set ofconsultants around me, you know,
I the BBC was, we had 36consultants, it's not all about
architects. And I really missedhaving those sort of people that
(07:28):
I would call regularly and justsort of ask, you know, I don't
know what to do here, what youknow, whether it's building
services, whether it'sstructure, you know, I have a
general overview, but I don'tknow the details. So I sort of
set about building a design andtechnical team, the only other
sort of model there was wasLaing O'Rourke doing something
sort of similar. And I, we builta design technical team in the
construction business, which wasmassively successful, and really
(07:51):
did help turn that businessaround, in my view. And then
integrated solutions was sort ofset up pretty much on the back
of that T&T sort of model. Butthe critical thing was that we
not only put in otherdisciplines, which I'll talk
about in a sec, but also Iinsisted that it sat outside of
construction. And the reason forthat is that sitting within
(08:13):
construction, we could onlysupport construction
independently, we've now beenmoved out of construction, which
means that we can supportdevelopment and our investment
management business, as well asconstruction in a completely
independent way. And that that'sreally important, the more you
start thinking about the digitalfuture, because it obviously,
there's going to be much morefront end work for anything
(08:37):
that's going to be our owndevelopment work. But it also
means that we're not tied intothe old methods of construction.
The other things that we addedin when we did integrated
solutions is we added inplanning, planning and
scheduling, cost planning,quality digital actually looked
after. So a lot of thetraditional things that had sat
within the business, I mean, themost controversial two are
(08:59):
planning and scheduling and costplanning because they'd both
been very much in the heart ofthe construction business. But
what it's done by having thosetaken out of the construction
businesses has meant we've beenable to digitise things much
quicker. And that centralizationof everything, which I'm very
keen on, because I'm very keenon digitalization is allowing us
to move at a much quicker pace.
(09:21):
And when we're developingsoftware, either internally or
externally, we're able to dothat quicker because we control
everything within the business.
So I also from a businessperspective, patrol technology
and business as well. I say thatin every like Machiavellian way.
It's not it really isn't. Itreally isn't like that. But I
mean, as you guys know, ifyou've got no control, you can't
change anything. So yeah, it'smore about control, maybe in a
(09:42):
machiavellian way, but I try notto think about it like that.
Paul O'Neill (09:46):
Yeah. So control and integration, I would say. So
as you mentioned, architect bytraining, we went to university
together and I think youintroduced me to Wallpaper
magazine, if you remember sat onone of the sofas in the studios.
I always remember that and soI'm an architect, I have had, I
guess, quite a traditionalcareer as an architect, but in
may be a slightly different typeof architectural and engineering
(10:08):
practices. So you touched on it.
So what drove you to move fromthe architectural role in an
architectural practice? And didyou always think that that was
going to be a possibility inyour career to move to a company
like Lendlease,I never thought I would end up
working essentially, for aclient that, you know, probably
isn't something, I didn't have acareer plan as such. So it
(10:28):
probably wasn't, it wasn't Idiscounted, it's just like the
point never really thought aboutit. I remember being very, very
nervous about doing it andseeking lots of counsel, which
everybody should do. By the way,if you're ever thinking about
changing, it's always good toask other people's opinions and
not rely on your own. Andprobably the turning point for
me was actually and I won'tshare which particular practice
it was. But I went in tointerview to run a very large
(10:50):
project, which was the otherlarge project in London, pretty
much as the BBC was finishingbecause I thought that was what
I wanted to do. And I remembersort of walking in and having a
chat with the partners in thepractice. And it was a sort of
very similar practice to how MJPwas before I left, and I just
was like, I can't possibly doall this again, I can't, I don't
(11:11):
want to take you know, anotherproject and sort of teach them
how to run a big project. Andthe standout moment for me was
when the architecture directorwas sort of like, we got to do
all the stagey drawings, orstage four drawings, but it
wasn't the best stages of work.
But you know, we've got to doall these detailed drawings. And
I'm like, why, you know, thesubcontractors are going to do
(11:31):
far better drawings you're evergoing to do, and having to have
that conversation at a very wellrespected architecture practice,
you know, sort of, you know, ineveryone's top 10 to go work
for, I was like, you just don'tunderstand the industry, you
don't actually understand how itworks, you don't understand that
every time you draw a facade, asubcontractor is going to redraw
(11:53):
it, he's going to redraw itbetter than you. And it was that
inefficiency in the overallindustry. That just drives me
insane. I'm like, Why does anarchitect design it once then a
subcontractor come in design itagain, that's just bonkers. And
so that probably was a pivotalmoment for me, where I sort of
realised that I wanted to makethe industry better. And
(12:13):
probably the only way I wasgoing to do that was was moving
to a sort of contractor, clientside, I mean, to be honest, even
at the time, I thought I wasjust going to work for a
contractor, I hadn't realised,and I sort of Lendlease don't
sort of talk about with othergreat stuff that they do. And at
that time, they were very smalldeveloper in London. And so the
(12:35):
opportunity when I actually gotthere was vast, although I did
think that I was going to workjust for inverted commas for a
'contractor, ' but it was theopportunity to be the person in
the business that knew aboutdesign knew about how the design
industry worked, and then beable to shape it across the
business. That was theattraction for me. And Lendlease
(12:56):
is the sort of place where ifyou have a good idea, and
you're, you know, self starter,they'll just let you get on with
it. So I've never had anybarriers put in, and we've done
it, there's always more to do.
But we've done a lot already.
And I've learned a lot. And I Inever thought, you know, I'd
like to think that architects,especially ones that think they
work in big practices, you know,working in a corporate company
(13:17):
is eye opening, there's like awhole world of the world that
there that we just don't knowabout as architects, which I
I've personally foundfascinating to the, you know,
perhaps more sort of people andculture perspective than, than
anything else, I've learned ahell of a lot. And I've learned
a lot about myself, my ownleadership style, you know, they
do really invest in you as aleader, and as a person, and all
that stuff. You, you just don'tget it in architecture practice.
(13:40):
So it's been great for mepersonally.
So I think you'd probably sayyes, do you think it's helpful
for architects to work withinconstruction and development
companies, I think you justtouched on then in there'll be
able to understand more aboutthat said, the intelligence in
the supply chain are not onlywhat a main contractor can give,
but all of their subcontractorsand what they can give early on
maybe in the design, if theyhave access to them. So would
(14:02):
you like to see more architectsaround you? And in that side of
the business?
Lucy Homer (14:06):
I think if and I'm sure we'll come to some of these
sort of broader questions, but Ithink if the architecture
industry is going to survive, Ithink I'll get a bit
controversiality in there prettyearly on, if it's going to
survive, I think it has to, andI think when people do come in,
and they work as a designmanager, that first year, people
just like if you're interestedin how it all really works. I
(14:29):
mean, it doesn't work in anyway, like people think it does.
And that it even to the realityof the understanding of how an
architect is seen by a client ora contractor. That level of
standing is just not in the sameplace that it used to be at all
and I find that really worryingand I think the more architects
(14:52):
that can understand, the better.
I was always really lucky. Imean, in my very first job I was
based on site so I've alwaysbeen around the reality of how
it actually works? And but somany people don't get that
opportunity to see that. And I,you know, to me architecture is
about teamwork. And if I werehaving a brief discussion over
architectural education, it thebiggest thing you were taught as
(15:14):
an as an architecture student isthat you stand up, can you do a
crit in a room, and it's allabout your work. I've never done
that, in a 25 year career,architecture is about teamwork.
It's about leading and being adesign team leader. And whether
it's managing on the BBC, Imanaged a team of sort of
between 30 and 100 people day today, but then you're also
managing a wider design team of36, consultants, you've all got
(15:38):
a team of 50 people. And so thejob is about people in reality,
and then when you start thinkingabout how many contractors
you're working with, and howmany subcontractors you're
working with, and it just goeson and on and on. And it's all
about communication. And thebiggest thing about what my
original team so I mean, I'lltell everyone a much bigger team
that the design managers, mostof what they do is actually a
(15:59):
sort of an interpretationbetween what does a
subcontractor want and need toknow whether it's in a drawing
form, or whether it's sort oftranslating the design language
that an architect is speakinginto a real language and someone
else can understand it is aninterpreter that, you know, and
it's crazy that our industryneeds that, because we're all
just building buildings.
Paul O'Neill (16:22):
And it wasn't that role was that there wasn't a
design manager role. I thinkwhen we started our careers, as
I remember, it was justhappening at that point. So
you're touching on some bigpoints here. So the way that the
sector is set up, you know, thecommercial arrangements or
spread of risk, the separationof roles? And how would you
change that? Do you thinkcurrent setup is good for the
built environment? How do youfeel that it's evolving? How
(16:44):
would you see it changing nowand in the future,
Lucy Homer (16:46):
So I think it's goin g to change massively. I'll own
that rather than worrying aboutall the problems. A lot of what
our digital strategy, and I'lltalk about digitization, because
a lot of what we've hadconversations about this in the
past is the digital side of theindustry future is actually the
easy bit. And I say this quite alot, internally. Developing
(17:08):
technologies is easy, changing abusiness culture and an industry
culture is the hard bit. So youknow, how do you go about doing
that? And it's going to takeyears, it took years in the
airline industry, carmanufacturing, etc. it's years.
And I think it's interesting togo back and read some of those
case studies. But yeah, thereality is at Lendlease, we're
(17:28):
probably two or three years intowhat will be a 25 year Change
plan, the internal marketingaround Podium, everyone thought
that, you know, it's definitelygonna be here within three
years. And, you know, I became abit of a sort of like, a
naysayer like, but like it'snot, you can't change things
that quickly, but aconcentration for us on working
(17:50):
with the supply chain earlydoors, so partnerships with our
key supply chain members,ideally, global players, getting
them to be the people that areessentially drawing their
components, whether it's awindow, whether it's a
structural component, there'ssubcontractors and the supply
chain, owning that element forus, and that be inputted
(18:14):
directly into models, that'sprobably the one thing that
really unlocks it for us. Inorder to do that we have to
concentrate on standardisation,obviously, although I'll talk
about that in a minute. Butthat's what we're concentrating
on. So we're concentrating onsoftware, you know, sort of
obviously, but the other bigpiece is the procurement supply
chain. And we're doing that at aglobal level. So probably the
(18:36):
people that we've talked aboutmost externally is Stora Enso,
is the reason we sort of went tothe Stora Enso. And so first for
those who don't know, that's alaminated timber supplier, is
because we built a lot ofbuildings in Australia with
laminated timber, we had a wholetimber department. So that was a
very easy thing for us tostandardise initially, but we
have a global framework dealwith Stora Enso. And we, you
(18:57):
know, we will develop as many ofour buildings through that
framework using that structuralsystem that we've developed with
them. And I think that is theone thing that you will unlock.
And I say one thing, becauseit's really easy, that that's
really hard, right? Really,really, really hard. And it'll
(19:18):
get there but it will takeyears. And that's one of the
reasons where I sort of gothat's where architects need to
be thinking about what theirrole is in the future. Because
if you're automating, you know,we've already seen that you I
think you guys developed one ofthe apps for developing master
plans automatically that thatstuff's really easy, right?
generative design, reallystraightforward, really easy.
(19:39):
The difficult bit to crack isthe supply chain piece. But it
will take a company like oursthough it might not be us, there
are many people out there tryingthe same thing. If you get those
two things together, then Ithink architects have to think
about what is their role in themore digitised to get what is
the architects role gonna be andone of the sort of things I've
(20:01):
written about this on myLinkedIn blog, which I advise
you to look at, but I haven'twritten one in about 18 months,
it's probably not worth it. The,the is one of the things I think
that will happen, the moredigitised and this this isn't,
this is sort of viewed as justabout our industry, it's
actually a sort of more of asort of general held belief I
have, the more computers areable to generate and do stuff,
(20:22):
actually, what you need is youneed true artisans, who were
then able to sort of lookthrough what is being produced
to actually pick out the trueart. And I think if architects
start thinking about themselvesas curators of a supply chain,
standardised systems rather thanas having to design everything
bespoke every time, then theindustry would be able to move
(20:44):
forward. And the reason I sortof say curation is, in reality,
that's what actually happenstoday, it's just that if you
don't understand how theconstruction industry portion
work, you know, you people don'tnecessarily realise that
actually, you know, a Schneideror, as you saw this example,
because I think it's the best,you know, there are two, you're
(21:07):
using their own standard systemsalready, then they're adapting
that to what the architecture isdesigned. But an architect
hasn't necessarily started fromwhat the systems are that are
available. And so there are waysthat architects can start
thinking in this way, it's justthat we very rarely see it in
the reason I can talk about thewhole industry is because, you
know, we work with a lot ofpeople. So we see how the
(21:29):
industry is performing. Sogenerally.
Paul O'Neill (21:31):
Excellent. So we're really interested in this,
as you know, you could set up asystem where you can automate
all of say, the detailed design,and you have your platform
system, your off site system,which is many different
iterations to suit the differentsector or building type. And
then the architect canconcentrate on what we call the
external architecture, theexterior architecture, we're not
just talking about the facade orthe look and feel, but also the
(21:53):
context and the placemaking. Sothat, you know, use all of their
skills there rather than oneoffice, you know, down the road,
doing details for a certainconstruction system, or
solution, and then anotheroffice doing exactly the same
but slightly different and onlarge programmes, obviously,
that pays dividends in terms ofthe efficiency and you get the
best value out with regard tothe way that we build and you
(22:15):
touched on standardisation.
Where do you see or what are themost promising directions of the
future of construction withdigital and you know, as we just
said, then digital techniques,solutions underpinning
everything. But what about MMC,off site, modular platform
solutions that we're creating?
How do you see what directiondoes that going?
Lucy Homer (22:36):
Well, I have slightly uh. I don't know how
controversial they are... asviews, but MMC really winds me
up, and it winds me up. Becauseanybody that talks about
something as being modern,that's actually been around for
over, you know, 120 years, justirritates me that the first
prefab house was 1906, Ibelieve. So it's not like this
(22:59):
stuff is new. And my personalview, and it's my personal view,
sort of rather than Lendleaseview, is that you don't, you
know, why does it need to bedelivered off site. So I think
that the building sites of thefuture will be automated, and
(23:19):
they will be fully digital, butthey'll also be constructed in
situ. And the main reason forthat is I don't think anybody
has solved the transportationissues, to get large pieces of
stuff for want of a better wordprefabricated to site is just
crazy. Why would you create ahuge factory building to build
(23:42):
another building inside it tothen transport it somewhere? And
that sort of certainlyinternally at Lendlease is quite
a controversial view. But itjust makes no logical sense to
me. And do I think there'll berobots just that, you know, I do
think there will I think thereare lots of things that the that
can be automated in in that way.
I don't think that's a problem.
But I think that the buildingsite of the future is
(24:04):
essentially creating a factoryenvironment or a building site.
So it's no longer a buildingsite, you know, and I, I think
that's pretty simple to do. Ithink it just requires thinking
about it in a different way. Andthe only way that works is
before you put a spade in theground. And again, looking at
some of the precedents inmanufacturing, is everything
(24:24):
needs to be signed off beforeyou start construction work. So
before you put a spade in theground, there needs to be an
actual sign off, not a sort ofnormal, rubbishy construction,
well, it's fine, we'll justchange it all later, every
drawing gets signed off everyprogramme, your quality plan,
everything is signed off, andit's all signed up digitally.
(24:45):
Obviously, everything is builtin the digital twin and you've
built it all beforehand. Andthen you go ahead and construct
it in reality, and again, thatsounds really simple, but that
is not, you know, design andbuild is a construct. I don't if
it was invented by Lendlease inAustralia, but certainly in
Australia, our company was thefirst to do it. What that's
allowed is an overlap betweenthe design and build process.
(25:08):
And what I think needs to happenis those two things need to be
separated again, so that youdesign, you plan, you get it
perfect, you stop. Is it all?
Okay? Yes, now you build it andseparate it, rather than try and
overlap it.
Paul O'Neill (25:22):
I think you just touched on something, there is
logistics as well, logistics andconstruction, because we want to
factor that in and reallyunderstand your logistical
strategies, then you can planeverything and know what you can
bring to site which may be premanufactured, and what you
actually need to manufacture onsite in your on site factory.
And we've looked at a number ofprojects, our main thing, when
(25:43):
we look at projects is what'sgoing to deliver the best value
for the project. And someprojects won't be able to have
the physical space, maybe for anonsite factory, or an automated
line. But a lot of projects,particularly the larger projects
will have those opportunities,those large scale programmes,
whether it's the hospitalsprogramme, whether it's
transportation programme,whether it's King's Cross in
(26:03):
London, you know, they couldhave had that because they've
got the space to look at that.
And it just ties in thelogistics of actually delivering
things to site to the sitelogistics as well. And the
automation and the robotics onsite.
Lucy Homer (26:15):
One of the ways I always talk about things, I
think people don't reallyovercomplicate buildings. And,
you know, although we are goingdown the route of sort of
buildings or factories on thesite, I also don't think you
need to do that. So I thinkthere will be a place for that
if you you know, as you quiterightly say, if there is the
space for it, etc. But I'mtalking about the actual
building site being the factory.
So an example I quite oftenrefer back to is just because
(26:37):
it's simple. In a building abuilding is different to
building a shed. In reality,it's just slightly more
complicated. And if someonegives you a kit of parts, you
construct your shed, you know,on a concrete base that you've
laid, and I think it's how doyou apply that to a building on
a bigger scale? And I thinkthat's entirely feasible,
because not everybody will havethe room to do a sort of factory
(27:01):
based on site. And I don't thinkyou need to, I think it's more
about the components turning upand how you put them together.
And thinking much more about itas a sort of Lego approach.
Paul O'Neill (27:11):
Just moving the conversation on the construction
playbook, which came out in 2020talks about the importance of
promoting SMEs. So the smallerplayers in the sector, do you
think a business like Lendleasecould benefit from that vision?
And how can they benefit
Lucy Homer (27:28):
when you because there's always a terminology
thing when you're talking SMEs?
Are you really talking tosubcontractor supply chain
members or are you talking abouta smaller main contractors just
to make sure we're talking aboutthe same thing?
Paul O'Neill (27:44):
Yeah, I think both really seeing maybe the more
agile smaller contractors, butalso your supply chain, the
smaller companies within yoursupply chain, and consultants,
of course, who tend to beslightly smaller, obviously,
than the large constructioncompanies.
Lucy Homer (27:59):
Everybody's important, right? Because I've
been I've talked aboutcollaboration already, the
supply chain, in terms of thesubcontractors we know where
we're buying things from iscritical. It's critical, not
only for delivering a projecttoday, but also as you think
about the digital future. Somassively important in terms of
smaller main contractors. And,you know, I wouldn't be
(28:20):
surprised if the answer comesfrom one of those, because I
just think that they're able tobe a lot more agile. And you
talked about sort of trying toget a company like Lendlease, to
change the way thinks when it'sbeen in construction for
decades, that's really hard. Soif you get the right company, at
(28:41):
a much smaller scale, it'll bemuch easier into about
consultant I think it you know,see this yourselves, but then
there's other people doinginteresting things as well. I
think the change could come fromanywhere. In reality, it needs
to come from everywhere. But theproblem is, I think that's
probably just too hard. So, inthe heart of hearts, I think it
(29:02):
will probably come from asmaller player who I think will
blow up very, very quickly, itwill scale up very quickly. If
someone's smart, you know, ifthere's someone really smart at
the helm, but one of the reasonsI'm still at Lendlease is
because I do sort of see thatthe opportunity for us because
we have this whole lifecyclethat's the problem is getting
(29:22):
the whole lifecycle is gettingthe investment through to the
occupancy. And there's no oneelse that can do that yet. The
other people that may crack itthat is someone like Google,
we're working with Google ontheir development stuff in San
Fran, and someone like thatcould crack it. But yeah, the
industry is complicated and itis how the money works. That's
(29:43):
the really complicated bit andit's so tied into the risks and
when you think about it GDPterms it's a massive it's a vast
that I think that's why it'snever you know, it makes money
so therefore people don't needto find a smarter way to make
money if I'm you know, liberalabout it. Yeah, I think is
interesting, but yeah, babyEveryone has their part to play.
I don't know if I answered thatvery well, but
Paul O'Neill (30:04):
you did. There are companies obviously talked about
logistics like Amazon, surelythey can contribute to the
efficiency of the constructionindustry in terms of logistics
and programming surely, andusing all of the, you know, the
digital platforms, basicallycoming back to digital, you
know, the digital platforms thatare created, which has
completely changed, say,deliveries and logistical
(30:24):
systems in the last five years,10 years, and then 15 and 20
years, that change in thatindustry surely can come into
the construction industry.
Lucy Homer (30:32):
And I think is really important. And I think as
an industry, I think we'repretty poor at this. But you
know, anytime that we'redeveloping new technology we
were looking at, so we werelooking at some construction,
logistic stops, sort of coupleof years ago, and we were sort
of decided to focus on somethingelse at the moment. But we went
out and we talked to some retaillogistics companies, because the
reality is, is that yourdeliveries, delivery doesn't
(30:53):
matter whether you're deliveringbuilding policy or delivery, you
know, apples is still delivery.
And I think there's so much tolearn from other industries. And
I just think, as an overallproperty industry, I think we're
pretty arrogant. And we lookoutside, see how other people
have solved stuff. Even simplethings like how the car
industry, you know, do theirdigitalization had the airline
industry do there's, you know, alot of people talk a lot of
(31:16):
rhetoric, but they haven'tactually gotten found out how to
do it, they might have read, youknow, one page article on
LinkedIn, and then they becomean expert, you know, but the
reality of what actuallyhappened that yeah, that's it, I
think it does come down toarrogance and ego that,
Paul O'Neill (31:30):
can I very quickly, just touch on and talk
about your love of painting. Asyou know, I see all of your
wonderful posts on Instagram,where you saying about the
positivity and responding to theworld with pure colour and
deliberate mark making, which Ifind is wonderful. It's been an
inspiration, I think, to mydaughter, who's painting and
sort of all of the colours inone of your landscape pieces.
(31:52):
Can you tell us a little bitabout that work? And would you
ever consider yourself orconsider being a full time
painter?
Lucy Homer (31:59):
Well, depending on who's gonna listen. So the dream
is to be a full time painter, Ialways wanted to be a painter.
And my parents thought thatbeing an architect was a much
more sensible profession and acareer choice. I always knew
that I would go back topainting, I didn't pick up a
paintbrush from the age of 18.
Until about two years ago, andone of the benefits of working
(32:23):
at Lendlease has actually beenfor me, because I'm much less
creative. Now in my day to dayjob, it's actually allowed me to
be much freer, and to be able tostart painting again, my
original plan was always to sortof retire early, and then start
painting. And the reason I sortof restarted a couple of years
(32:44):
ago is I had a fairly majoroperation, which just maybe sort
of made me look at my life andjust sort of go what, you know,
why am I waiting for somethingthat I want to do? Even though
even though quite arrogantlyhadn't picked up a paintbrush? I
didn't really know if I was anygood or not. But I think that
COVID For a lot of people hasallowed people to sort of look
at their lives and just sort ofgo, you know, what choices? Am I
(33:06):
making? What's important to me?
What do I want to do? And so, sofor me, that's been, you know, I
don't have any intention ofgiving up work yet. But I work
very hard at my painting atweekends, and in any spare time,
and I'd love to, certainly twintrack careers for a while. And
then if you know, financiallyable, you know, I'd love to do
(33:29):
it full time. Absolutely. Interms of my actual painting, or
very kind words, in reality, Ipaint intuitively, I think the
architectural background isinteresting, because it gives me
perhaps a different sense onthings like perspective, I have
spoken a little bit about sortof breaking free of very rigid
(33:50):
black and white lines that yousort of, you know, surrounded by
as an architect and plans, Ithink, sort of love of pure
white surfaces, which comes fromsort of handling paper, and has
sort of meant that my paintingshave a pure white background,
that the paint marks they arebright colours. And I believe
(34:10):
that it's always a littlereaction against years of black
and white, and then then verygestural movement. So you know,
none of this sort of like rulerand pen malarkey is very much
like what do you instinctivelymake, rather than controlling
something? So there's all veryuncontrolled and everything is a
response to the natural worldaround me I'm very interested in
(34:30):
the natural world and recordingthat in the way that I see it. I
have no interest in drawingbuildings at all. I am
interested though, in the marksthat people make on the
landscape. So paths hedges, sortof how we control nature, either
intentionally or unintentionallythat does interest me and yeah,
(34:51):
I absolutely love it. You knowit. I think having I've been
speaking about this a little bitat work internally, I think
having a hobby which I think hasalways been frowned upon, sort
of corporately speaking actuallymakes you a better employee,
because you have an outlet ofsomething you're completely
passionate about. I mean, I amlike the most driven person in
(35:11):
the world. And I'm probably areally irritating employee. And
I've got to an executive levelin a big corporate company. And
you know, happy day means that Ialways want more, having an
outlet allows me to channel thatsort of drive into something
creative, rather thanchannelling it into work. And
you know, I still give, I stillget work 100%. But I'm not
(35:32):
constantly striving for what'sthe next promotion, I don't need
to be CEO anymore. It's allowedme to sort of drive to things
but not have to drive myselfbecause I'm doing that in a
different way. Now, if thatmakes sense, I advocate all my
staff, I advocate, they do stuffoutside of work, I think it's
really important,
Paul O'Neill (35:50):
because it's part of the well being, and
definitely the love of paintingdefinitely comes across from all
of your posts on Instagram,which is fascinating.
Lucy Homer (36:01):
Give a plug for my Instagram, at Lucy Homer Jones,
just in case anyone wants tofollow, therefore, Instagram,
Paul O'Neill (36:09):
and interesting.
It's not just pictures, youexplain the series as well, that
you're going to concentrate on,which is really good.
Lucy Homer (36:15):
I was actually talking about that song the
other day. I think that's anarchitectural thing. So I think
it's really important to explainthe process. And I think a lot
of artists don't do that. And Iis actually the bit that I'm
always really interested inwhat's behind the painting. So I
deliberately do that Ideliberately explain it. It
really helps.
Paul O'Neill (36:35):
Right, finally, back to the built environment.
We asked this question toeveryone, how optimistic are you
about the future of our sector?
Lucy Homer (36:43):
I'm very optimistic about the and I've sort of said
this already. I'm veryoptimistic about the industry as
a whole. And I do think it willget there. I just don't know if
consultants will be part ofthat. And I think that
consultants generally need toreally think about what their
part is going to be in thefuture because I think if
(37:05):
they're not careful, they won'texist. Not you guys obviously,
you'll be fine.
Paul O'Neill (37:10):
Yes, I think everybody's got to evolve and
respond
Lucy Homer (37:14):
is quite a serious point. But I think the people
that I really worried aboutother medium size consultancy
practices and I mean that acrossthe board, it's not just
architects it's all of them. Ithink the big multi discies will
survive, and I think small nichepractices this will survive, but
I think the medium sizedpractices will struggle.
Paul O'Neill (37:33):
Lucy, it's been fantastic talking to you. It's
been a great conversation. Thankyou for joining us.
Lucy Homer (37:38):
It's my pleasure.
Have a good day everyone.
Paul O'Neill (37:40):
Thank you for listening to this edition of
Built Environment Matters.
Please join us again next time.
Credits (37:48):
Thank you for listening to Built Environment Matters. A
podcast brought to you by BrydenWood. Listen and subscribe
wherever you get your favouritepodcast. And you can follow
Bryden Wood on LinkedIn andTwitter.
Hello, welcome to Built Environment Matters, a monthly
podcast brought to you by BrydenWood, an international company
of technologists, designers,architects, engineers and
analysts working for a betterbuilt environment Bryden Wood
would believe in Design to Valueto cut carbon drive efficiency,
save time, make beautiful placesand build a better future.
Paul O'Neill (00:33):
Hello, and welcome to this edition of Built
Environment Matters the BrydenWood podcast. I'm Paul O'Neill,
Architectural Board Director atBryden Wood. And this month,
we're joined by Lucy Homer. Lucyis European Head of Integrated
Solutions at Lendlease, amultinational construction
property and infrastructurecompany. She has an industry
(00:53):
leading team of globallyconnected experts whose aim is
to promote unparalleled andindustry leading opportunities
to stay ahead of the curve andcapitalise on project outcomes.
This global group has been setup to drive productivity and
efficiencies across the wholebusiness, in conjunction with
Lendlease's overall digitalstrategy, Lucy's intention is to
(01:15):
collaborate across the globalLendlease business creating
innovations especially aroundalternative materials supporting
their sustainability agenda. Shehas a wide remit across the
European region, with projectsranging in value from 20 million
to 1.6 billion pounds. Lucy isalso an active spokesperson for
(01:35):
the industry, particularly whenit comes to young recruits and
female staff. Lucy won theLifetime Achievement Award at
the European Women inConstruction and Engineering
Awards in 2016. In 2018, she wonthe Lendlease global Employee
Excellence Award for Diversityand Inclusion. Outside of work,
Lucy is an abstract landscapepainter, and has just moved
(01:57):
house to a great two star listedproperty, which she is currently
renovating, including a new artstudio in an old dairy. Lucy,
your current role is the Head ofIntegrated Solutions at
Lendlease. And for people whodon't know Lendlease, or
yourself, could you tell us alittle bit about your company,
and also about your role there.
Lucy Homer (02:17):
I will try to keep that as succinct an answer as
possible. Lendlease is a globalorganisation based in Australia.
And it's an unusual organisationjust in terms of what it covers.
So there's a lot of contractordevelopers out there, and I'm
sure that everyone is very awareof our competitors in that
space. And not only the sort ofmultiplex types, the also
(02:40):
Australian base, but many otherpeople as well. And probably in
the UK, it's more eithercontractors or developers that
we would consider ourcompetition. But unusually, the
bit that sort of sets Lendleaseapart, the bit that probably
interests me a little bit more,as there's two other parts to
Lendlease that people areperhaps aware of. So it's a
major sort of part of thestrategies that we also invest
(03:01):
our own money. So a lot of ourown developments are actually
funded, mainly in part, usuallyabout 50% through our own
Lendlease capital. There is noother company that does, that's
another company that has theinvestment side, the development
side and the construction side,we also then do operate some of
our buildings and precincts aswell. And again, that's
(03:23):
something else that sort of setsus apart. So we are the only
company that we have seen longrunning sort of
developer/contractor that reallydoes truly have end to end
engagement and buildings. Andthat sort of ties quite nicely
into all the topics I knowyou'll want to talk about, which
is really our overarching sortof digital strategy. So for
those of you who do sort offollow such things, we you know,
(03:44):
we have set up a digitalbusiness in Australia, which is
called P odium. And that reallyis to take advantage because we
have this competitive advantageof having the whole life cycle,
what we're trying to do is tobuild either our own software
and develop our own software totake advantage of that end to
end lifecycle. So it is anunusual company. And it's much
(04:04):
broader than perhaps what yousort of see if you work with
this either as a developerclient, or if you're, you know,
if people are working with thissort of from an external
construction perspective, westill do all the normal things,
but we do lots of other thingstoo. And perhaps those things we
don't talk about quite as muchas the more normal things. So
Lendlease is based in Australia,but we also operate in America,
(04:27):
Asia and in Europe. And we focuson gateway cities. So we have 15
identified gateway cities aroundthe world. And that is part of
our overall strategy which isabout urban regeneration at
scale. So in London that isfocused around Elephant and
Castle, IQL, which is thedevelopment which is just on the
(04:50):
site of the old Olympic Park.
And then the new things in thepress that you will have read
about Smithfield in Birmingham,Euston, High Road West,
Thamesmead So all the thingsthat are sort of coming up in
London so we've got asignificant pipeline in Europe
and the other places we work inEurope are predominantly Italy
at the moment. So we identifiedMilan as a gateway city. And so
(05:10):
we were doing a huge amount ofdevelopment work in Milan as
well. So that was Lendlease,sorry, then you want me.
Architect by background, as yousaid, and Paul and I went, I
went to Sheffield, and Ipractised for, I think, probably
15 years as an architect, I sawBBC Broadcasting House, which is
where the news comes from everynight I worked originally for
(05:34):
Richard McCormack, and McCormackJones and Pritchard for five
years, and then I was the onlyperson when McCormack Jones and
Pritchard were removed from thatproject. I then went and was the
only person who finished theproject working for Sheppard
Robson who took over until I sawthat project from planning all
the way through to be the personthat was embarrassingly having
(05:55):
to curtsy on live BBC TV. So Iam not scared of anything. This
podcast is nothing you know,when you're when you're a BBC TV
being presented to the queen asthe architect of a building, and
you've got to curtsy that'spretty scary stuff. That was 10
years of my life to the BBC hugeportion of my career. And I
suppose what I sort of thoughtwas would you do after a
(06:18):
building like that? So thatyeah, that's a once in a
lifetime opportunity. It wasincredible. It saw me from
assistant sort of architect allthe way through to project
director and it was awesome. Ithen was approached by as it was
Bovis Lendlease several times togo over to work for them. And
suddenly, they've been thecontractor on the BBC. So I
should say that I said no forabout two years. And then the
(06:40):
person who was heading up designmanagement at that time, who had
been in the job a long timeactually decided to retire. And
so at that point, I had anotherconversation. And I decided that
if I was going to go and try it,it was good to go in and shape
it to all I thought it could beand should be. And so I went in
originally to look after Londonsort of design management for
(07:03):
the construction business, wevery quickly sort of took over
everything in the UK. And thenwe started looking at how could
we do this better. So one of thethings I really missed what is I
think, quite interesting aboutBryden Wood is I always really
miss not having a set ofconsultants around me, you know,
I the BBC was, we had 36consultants, it's not all about
architects. And I really missedhaving those sort of people that
(07:28):
I would call regularly and justsort of ask, you know, I don't
know what to do here, what youknow, whether it's building
services, whether it'sstructure, you know, I have a
general overview, but I don'tknow the details. So I sort of
set about building a design andtechnical team, the only other
sort of model there was wasLaing O'Rourke doing something
sort of similar. And I, we builta design technical team in the
construction business, which wasmassively successful, and really
(07:51):
did help turn that businessaround, in my view. And then
integrated solutions was sort ofset up pretty much on the back
of that T&T sort of model. Butthe critical thing was that we
not only put in otherdisciplines, which I'll talk
about in a sec, but also Iinsisted that it sat outside of
construction. And the reason forthat is that sitting within
(08:13):
construction, we could onlysupport construction
independently, we've now beenmoved out of construction, which
means that we can supportdevelopment and our investment
management business, as well asconstruction in a completely
independent way. And that that'sreally important, the more you
start thinking about the digitalfuture, because it obviously,
there's going to be much morefront end work for anything
(08:37):
that's going to be our owndevelopment work. But it also
means that we're not tied intothe old methods of construction.
The other things that we addedin when we did integrated
solutions is we added inplanning, planning and
scheduling, cost planning,quality digital actually looked
after. So a lot of thetraditional things that had sat
within the business, I mean, themost controversial two are
(08:59):
planning and scheduling and costplanning because they'd both
been very much in the heart ofthe construction business. But
what it's done by having thosetaken out of the construction
businesses has meant we've beenable to digitise things much
quicker. And that centralizationof everything, which I'm very
keen on, because I'm very keenon digitalization is allowing us
to move at a much quicker pace.
(09:21):
And when we're developingsoftware, either internally or
externally, we're able to dothat quicker because we control
everything within the business.
So I also from a businessperspective, patrol technology
and business as well. I say thatin every like Machiavellian way.
It's not it really isn't. Itreally isn't like that. But I
mean, as you guys know, ifyou've got no control, you can't
change anything. So yeah, it'smore about control, maybe in a
(09:42):
machiavellian way, but I try notto think about it like that.
Paul O'Neill (09:46):
Yeah. So control and integration, I would say. So
as you mentioned, architect bytraining, we went to university
together and I think youintroduced me to Wallpaper
magazine, if you remember sat onone of the sofas in the studios.
I always remember that and soI'm an architect, I have had, I
guess, quite a traditionalcareer as an architect, but in
may be a slightly different typeof architectural and engineering
(10:08):
practices. So you touched on it.
So what drove you to move fromthe architectural role in an
architectural practice? And didyou always think that that was
going to be a possibility inyour career to move to a company
like Lendlease,I never thought I would end up
working essentially, for aclient that, you know, probably
isn't something, I didn't have acareer plan as such. So it
(10:28):
probably wasn't, it wasn't Idiscounted, it's just like the
point never really thought aboutit. I remember being very, very
nervous about doing it andseeking lots of counsel, which
everybody should do. By the way,if you're ever thinking about
changing, it's always good toask other people's opinions and
not rely on your own. Andprobably the turning point for
me was actually and I won'tshare which particular practice
it was. But I went in tointerview to run a very large
(10:50):
project, which was the otherlarge project in London, pretty
much as the BBC was finishingbecause I thought that was what
I wanted to do. And I remembersort of walking in and having a
chat with the partners in thepractice. And it was a sort of
very similar practice to how MJPwas before I left, and I just
was like, I can't possibly doall this again, I can't, I don't
(11:11):
want to take you know, anotherproject and sort of teach them
how to run a big project. Andthe standout moment for me was
when the architecture directorwas sort of like, we got to do
all the stagey drawings, orstage four drawings, but it
wasn't the best stages of work.
But you know, we've got to doall these detailed drawings. And
I'm like, why, you know, thesubcontractors are going to do
(11:31):
far better drawings you're evergoing to do, and having to have
that conversation at a very wellrespected architecture practice,
you know, sort of, you know, ineveryone's top 10 to go work
for, I was like, you just don'tunderstand the industry, you
don't actually understand how itworks, you don't understand that
every time you draw a facade, asubcontractor is going to redraw
(11:53):
it, he's going to redraw itbetter than you. And it was that
inefficiency in the overallindustry. That just drives me
insane. I'm like, Why does anarchitect design it once then a
subcontractor come in design itagain, that's just bonkers. And
so that probably was a pivotalmoment for me, where I sort of
realised that I wanted to makethe industry better. And
(12:13):
probably the only way I wasgoing to do that was was moving
to a sort of contractor, clientside, I mean, to be honest, even
at the time, I thought I wasjust going to work for a
contractor, I hadn't realised,and I sort of Lendlease don't
sort of talk about with othergreat stuff that they do. And at
that time, they were very smalldeveloper in London. And so the
(12:35):
opportunity when I actually gotthere was vast, although I did
think that I was going to workjust for inverted commas for a
'contractor, ' but it was theopportunity to be the person in
the business that knew aboutdesign knew about how the design
industry worked, and then beable to shape it across the
business. That was theattraction for me. And Lendlease
(12:56):
is the sort of place where ifyou have a good idea, and
you're, you know, self starter,they'll just let you get on with
it. So I've never had anybarriers put in, and we've done
it, there's always more to do.
But we've done a lot already.
And I've learned a lot. And I Inever thought, you know, I'd
like to think that architects,especially ones that think they
work in big practices, you know,working in a corporate company
(13:17):
is eye opening, there's like awhole world of the world that
there that we just don't knowabout as architects, which I
I've personally foundfascinating to the, you know,
perhaps more sort of people andculture perspective than, than
anything else, I've learned ahell of a lot. And I've learned
a lot about myself, my ownleadership style, you know, they
do really invest in you as aleader, and as a person, and all
that stuff. You, you just don'tget it in architecture practice.
(13:40):
So it's been great for mepersonally.
So I think you'd probably sayyes, do you think it's helpful
for architects to work withinconstruction and development
companies, I think you justtouched on then in there'll be
able to understand more aboutthat said, the intelligence in
the supply chain are not onlywhat a main contractor can give,
but all of their subcontractorsand what they can give early on
maybe in the design, if theyhave access to them. So would
(14:02):
you like to see more architectsaround you? And in that side of
the business?
Lucy Homer (14:06):
I think if and I'm sure we'll come to some of these
sort of broader questions, but Ithink if the architecture
industry is going to survive, Ithink I'll get a bit
controversiality in there prettyearly on, if it's going to
survive, I think it has to, andI think when people do come in,
and they work as a designmanager, that first year, people
just like if you're interestedin how it all really works. I
(14:29):
mean, it doesn't work in anyway, like people think it does.
And that it even to the realityof the understanding of how an
architect is seen by a client ora contractor. That level of
standing is just not in the sameplace that it used to be at all
and I find that really worryingand I think the more architects
(14:52):
that can understand, the better.
I was always really lucky. Imean, in my very first job I was
based on site so I've alwaysbeen around the reality of how
it actually works? And but somany people don't get that
opportunity to see that. And I,you know, to me architecture is
about teamwork. And if I werehaving a brief discussion over
architectural education, it thebiggest thing you were taught as
(15:14):
an as an architecture student isthat you stand up, can you do a
crit in a room, and it's allabout your work. I've never done
that, in a 25 year career,architecture is about teamwork.
It's about leading and being adesign team leader. And whether
it's managing on the BBC, Imanaged a team of sort of
between 30 and 100 people day today, but then you're also
managing a wider design team of36, consultants, you've all got
(15:38):
a team of 50 people. And so thejob is about people in reality,
and then when you start thinkingabout how many contractors
you're working with, and howmany subcontractors you're
working with, and it just goeson and on and on. And it's all
about communication. And thebiggest thing about what my
original team so I mean, I'lltell everyone a much bigger team
that the design managers, mostof what they do is actually a
(15:59):
sort of an interpretationbetween what does a
subcontractor want and need toknow whether it's in a drawing
form, or whether it's sort oftranslating the design language
that an architect is speakinginto a real language and someone
else can understand it is aninterpreter that, you know, and
it's crazy that our industryneeds that, because we're all
just building buildings.
Paul O'Neill (16:22):
And it wasn't that role was that there wasn't a
design manager role. I thinkwhen we started our careers, as
I remember, it was justhappening at that point. So
you're touching on some bigpoints here. So the way that the
sector is set up, you know, thecommercial arrangements or
spread of risk, the separationof roles? And how would you
change that? Do you thinkcurrent setup is good for the
built environment? How do youfeel that it's evolving? How
(16:44):
would you see it changing nowand in the future,
Lucy Homer (16:46):
So I think it's goin g to change massively. I'll own
that rather than worrying aboutall the problems. A lot of what
our digital strategy, and I'lltalk about digitization, because
a lot of what we've hadconversations about this in the
past is the digital side of theindustry future is actually the
easy bit. And I say this quite alot, internally. Developing
(17:08):
technologies is easy, changing abusiness culture and an industry
culture is the hard bit. So youknow, how do you go about doing
that? And it's going to takeyears, it took years in the
airline industry, carmanufacturing, etc. it's years.
And I think it's interesting togo back and read some of those
case studies. But yeah, thereality is at Lendlease, we're
(17:28):
probably two or three years intowhat will be a 25 year Change
plan, the internal marketingaround Podium, everyone thought
that, you know, it's definitelygonna be here within three
years. And, you know, I became abit of a sort of like, a
naysayer like, but like it'snot, you can't change things
that quickly, but aconcentration for us on working
(17:50):
with the supply chain earlydoors, so partnerships with our
key supply chain members,ideally, global players, getting
them to be the people that areessentially drawing their
components, whether it's awindow, whether it's a
structural component, there'ssubcontractors and the supply
chain, owning that element forus, and that be inputted
(18:14):
directly into models, that'sprobably the one thing that
really unlocks it for us. Inorder to do that we have to
concentrate on standardisation,obviously, although I'll talk
about that in a minute. Butthat's what we're concentrating
on. So we're concentrating onsoftware, you know, sort of
obviously, but the other bigpiece is the procurement supply
chain. And we're doing that at aglobal level. So probably the
(18:36):
people that we've talked aboutmost externally is Stora Enso,
is the reason we sort of went tothe Stora Enso. And so first for
those who don't know, that's alaminated timber supplier, is
because we built a lot ofbuildings in Australia with
laminated timber, we had a wholetimber department. So that was a
very easy thing for us tostandardise initially, but we
have a global framework dealwith Stora Enso. And we, you
(18:57):
know, we will develop as many ofour buildings through that
framework using that structuralsystem that we've developed with
them. And I think that is theone thing that you will unlock.
And I say one thing, becauseit's really easy, that that's
really hard, right? Really,really, really hard. And it'll
(19:18):
get there but it will takeyears. And that's one of the
reasons where I sort of gothat's where architects need to
be thinking about what theirrole is in the future. Because
if you're automating, you know,we've already seen that you I
think you guys developed one ofthe apps for developing master
plans automatically that thatstuff's really easy, right?
generative design, reallystraightforward, really easy.
(19:39):
The difficult bit to crack isthe supply chain piece. But it
will take a company like oursthough it might not be us, there
are many people out there tryingthe same thing. If you get those
two things together, then Ithink architects have to think
about what is their role in themore digitised to get what is
the architects role gonna be andone of the sort of things I've
(20:01):
written about this on myLinkedIn blog, which I advise
you to look at, but I haven'twritten one in about 18 months,
it's probably not worth it. The,the is one of the things I think
that will happen, the moredigitised and this this isn't,
this is sort of viewed as justabout our industry, it's
actually a sort of more of asort of general held belief I
have, the more computers areable to generate and do stuff,
(20:22):
actually, what you need is youneed true artisans, who were
then able to sort of lookthrough what is being produced
to actually pick out the trueart. And I think if architects
start thinking about themselvesas curators of a supply chain,
standardised systems rather thanas having to design everything
bespoke every time, then theindustry would be able to move
(20:44):
forward. And the reason I sortof say curation is, in reality,
that's what actually happenstoday, it's just that if you
don't understand how theconstruction industry portion
work, you know, you people don'tnecessarily realise that
actually, you know, a Schneideror, as you saw this example,
because I think it's the best,you know, there are two, you're
(21:07):
using their own standard systemsalready, then they're adapting
that to what the architecture isdesigned. But an architect
hasn't necessarily started fromwhat the systems are that are
available. And so there are waysthat architects can start
thinking in this way, it's justthat we very rarely see it in
the reason I can talk about thewhole industry is because, you
know, we work with a lot ofpeople. So we see how the
(21:29):
industry is performing. Sogenerally.
Paul O'Neill (21:31):
Excellent. So we're really interested in this,
as you know, you could set up asystem where you can automate
all of say, the detailed design,and you have your platform
system, your off site system,which is many different
iterations to suit the differentsector or building type. And
then the architect canconcentrate on what we call the
external architecture, theexterior architecture, we're not
just talking about the facade orthe look and feel, but also the
(21:53):
context and the placemaking. Sothat, you know, use all of their
skills there rather than oneoffice, you know, down the road,
doing details for a certainconstruction system, or
solution, and then anotheroffice doing exactly the same
but slightly different and onlarge programmes, obviously,
that pays dividends in terms ofthe efficiency and you get the
best value out with regard tothe way that we build and you
(22:15):
touched on standardisation.
Where do you see or what are themost promising directions of the
future of construction withdigital and you know, as we just
said, then digital techniques,solutions underpinning
everything. But what about MMC,off site, modular platform
solutions that we're creating?
How do you see what directiondoes that going?
Lucy Homer (22:36):
Well, I have slightly uh. I don't know how
controversial they are... asviews, but MMC really winds me
up, and it winds me up. Becauseanybody that talks about
something as being modern,that's actually been around for
over, you know, 120 years, justirritates me that the first
prefab house was 1906, Ibelieve. So it's not like this
(22:59):
stuff is new. And my personalview, and it's my personal view,
sort of rather than Lendleaseview, is that you don't, you
know, why does it need to bedelivered off site. So I think
that the building sites of thefuture will be automated, and
(23:19):
they will be fully digital, butthey'll also be constructed in
situ. And the main reason forthat is I don't think anybody
has solved the transportationissues, to get large pieces of
stuff for want of a better wordprefabricated to site is just
crazy. Why would you create ahuge factory building to build
(23:42):
another building inside it tothen transport it somewhere? And
that sort of certainlyinternally at Lendlease is quite
a controversial view. But itjust makes no logical sense to
me. And do I think there'll berobots just that, you know, I do
think there will I think thereare lots of things that the that
can be automated in in that way.
I don't think that's a problem.
But I think that the buildingsite of the future is
(24:04):
essentially creating a factoryenvironment or a building site.
So it's no longer a buildingsite, you know, and I, I think
that's pretty simple to do. Ithink it just requires thinking
about it in a different way. Andthe only way that works is
before you put a spade in theground. And again, looking at
some of the precedents inmanufacturing, is everything
(24:24):
needs to be signed off beforeyou start construction work. So
before you put a spade in theground, there needs to be an
actual sign off, not a sort ofnormal, rubbishy construction,
well, it's fine, we'll justchange it all later, every
drawing gets signed off everyprogramme, your quality plan,
everything is signed off, andit's all signed up digitally.
(24:45):
Obviously, everything is builtin the digital twin and you've
built it all beforehand. Andthen you go ahead and construct
it in reality, and again, thatsounds really simple, but that
is not, you know, design andbuild is a construct. I don't if
it was invented by Lendlease inAustralia, but certainly in
Australia, our company was thefirst to do it. What that's
allowed is an overlap betweenthe design and build process.
(25:08):
And what I think needs to happenis those two things need to be
separated again, so that youdesign, you plan, you get it
perfect, you stop. Is it all?
Okay? Yes, now you build it andseparate it, rather than try and
overlap it.
Paul O'Neill (25:22):
I think you just touched on something, there is
logistics as well, logistics andconstruction, because we want to
factor that in and reallyunderstand your logistical
strategies, then you can planeverything and know what you can
bring to site which may be premanufactured, and what you
actually need to manufacture onsite in your on site factory.
And we've looked at a number ofprojects, our main thing, when
(25:43):
we look at projects is what'sgoing to deliver the best value
for the project. And someprojects won't be able to have
the physical space, maybe for anonsite factory, or an automated
line. But a lot of projects,particularly the larger projects
will have those opportunities,those large scale programmes,
whether it's the hospitalsprogramme, whether it's
transportation programme,whether it's King's Cross in
(26:03):
London, you know, they couldhave had that because they've
got the space to look at that.
And it just ties in thelogistics of actually delivering
things to site to the sitelogistics as well. And the
automation and the robotics onsite.
Lucy Homer (26:15):
One of the ways I always talk about things, I
think people don't reallyovercomplicate buildings. And,
you know, although we are goingdown the route of sort of
buildings or factories on thesite, I also don't think you
need to do that. So I thinkthere will be a place for that
if you you know, as you quiterightly say, if there is the
space for it, etc. But I'mtalking about the actual
building site being the factory.
So an example I quite oftenrefer back to is just because
(26:37):
it's simple. In a building abuilding is different to
building a shed. In reality,it's just slightly more
complicated. And if someonegives you a kit of parts, you
construct your shed, you know,on a concrete base that you've
laid, and I think it's how doyou apply that to a building on
a bigger scale? And I thinkthat's entirely feasible,
because not everybody will havethe room to do a sort of factory
(27:01):
based on site. And I don't thinkyou need to, I think it's more
about the components turning upand how you put them together.
And thinking much more about itas a sort of Lego approach.
Paul O'Neill (27:11):
Just moving the conversation on the construction
playbook, which came out in 2020talks about the importance of
promoting SMEs. So the smallerplayers in the sector, do you
think a business like Lendleasecould benefit from that vision?
And how can they benefit
Lucy Homer (27:28):
when you because there's always a terminology
thing when you're talking SMEs?
Are you really talking tosubcontractor supply chain
members or are you talking abouta smaller main contractors just
to make sure we're talking aboutthe same thing?
Paul O'Neill (27:44):
Yeah, I think both really seeing maybe the more
agile smaller contractors, butalso your supply chain, the
smaller companies within yoursupply chain, and consultants,
of course, who tend to beslightly smaller, obviously,
than the large constructioncompanies.
Lucy Homer (27:59):
Everybody's important, right? Because I've
been I've talked aboutcollaboration already, the
supply chain, in terms of thesubcontractors we know where
we're buying things from iscritical. It's critical, not
only for delivering a projecttoday, but also as you think
about the digital future. Somassively important in terms of
smaller main contractors. And,you know, I wouldn't be
(28:20):
surprised if the answer comesfrom one of those, because I
just think that they're able tobe a lot more agile. And you
talked about sort of trying toget a company like Lendlease, to
change the way thinks when it'sbeen in construction for
decades, that's really hard. Soif you get the right company, at
(28:41):
a much smaller scale, it'll bemuch easier into about
consultant I think it you know,see this yourselves, but then
there's other people doinginteresting things as well. I
think the change could come fromanywhere. In reality, it needs
to come from everywhere. But theproblem is, I think that's
probably just too hard. So, inthe heart of hearts, I think it
(29:02):
will probably come from asmaller player who I think will
blow up very, very quickly, itwill scale up very quickly. If
someone's smart, you know, ifthere's someone really smart at
the helm, but one of the reasonsI'm still at Lendlease is
because I do sort of see thatthe opportunity for us because
we have this whole lifecyclethat's the problem is getting
(29:22):
the whole lifecycle is gettingthe investment through to the
occupancy. And there's no oneelse that can do that yet. The
other people that may crack itthat is someone like Google,
we're working with Google ontheir development stuff in San
Fran, and someone like thatcould crack it. But yeah, the
industry is complicated and itis how the money works. That's
(29:43):
the really complicated bit andit's so tied into the risks and
when you think about it GDPterms it's a massive it's a vast
that I think that's why it'snever you know, it makes money
so therefore people don't needto find a smarter way to make
money if I'm you know, liberalabout it. Yeah, I think is
interesting, but yeah, babyEveryone has their part to play.
I don't know if I answered thatvery well, but
Paul O'Neill (30:04):
you did. There are companies obviously talked about
logistics like Amazon, surelythey can contribute to the
efficiency of the constructionindustry in terms of logistics
and programming surely, andusing all of the, you know, the
digital platforms, basicallycoming back to digital, you
know, the digital platforms thatare created, which has
completely changed, say,deliveries and logistical
(30:24):
systems in the last five years,10 years, and then 15 and 20
years, that change in thatindustry surely can come into
the construction industry.
Lucy Homer (30:32):
And I think is really important. And I think as
an industry, I think we'repretty poor at this. But you
know, anytime that we'redeveloping new technology we
were looking at, so we werelooking at some construction,
logistic stops, sort of coupleof years ago, and we were sort
of decided to focus on somethingelse at the moment. But we went
out and we talked to some retaillogistics companies, because the
reality is, is that yourdeliveries, delivery doesn't
(30:53):
matter whether you're deliveringbuilding policy or delivery, you
know, apples is still delivery.
And I think there's so much tolearn from other industries. And
I just think, as an overallproperty industry, I think we're
pretty arrogant. And we lookoutside, see how other people
have solved stuff. Even simplethings like how the car
industry, you know, do theirdigitalization had the airline
industry do there's, you know, alot of people talk a lot of
(31:16):
rhetoric, but they haven'tactually gotten found out how to
do it, they might have read, youknow, one page article on
LinkedIn, and then they becomean expert, you know, but the
reality of what actuallyhappened that yeah, that's it, I
think it does come down toarrogance and ego that,
Paul O'Neill (31:30):
can I very quickly, just touch on and talk
about your love of painting. Asyou know, I see all of your
wonderful posts on Instagram,where you saying about the
positivity and responding to theworld with pure colour and
deliberate mark making, which Ifind is wonderful. It's been an
inspiration, I think, to mydaughter, who's painting and
sort of all of the colours inone of your landscape pieces.
(31:52):
Can you tell us a little bitabout that work? And would you
ever consider yourself orconsider being a full time
painter?
Lucy Homer (31:59):
Well, depending on who's gonna listen. So the dream
is to be a full time painter, Ialways wanted to be a painter.
And my parents thought thatbeing an architect was a much
more sensible profession and acareer choice. I always knew
that I would go back topainting, I didn't pick up a
paintbrush from the age of 18.
Until about two years ago, andone of the benefits of working
(32:23):
at Lendlease has actually beenfor me, because I'm much less
creative. Now in my day to dayjob, it's actually allowed me to
be much freer, and to be able tostart painting again, my
original plan was always to sortof retire early, and then start
painting. And the reason I sortof restarted a couple of years
(32:44):
ago is I had a fairly majoroperation, which just maybe sort
of made me look at my life andjust sort of go what, you know,
why am I waiting for somethingthat I want to do? Even though
even though quite arrogantlyhadn't picked up a paintbrush? I
didn't really know if I was anygood or not. But I think that
COVID For a lot of people hasallowed people to sort of look
at their lives and just sort ofgo, you know, what choices? Am I
(33:06):
making? What's important to me?
What do I want to do? And so, sofor me, that's been, you know, I
don't have any intention ofgiving up work yet. But I work
very hard at my painting atweekends, and in any spare time,
and I'd love to, certainly twintrack careers for a while. And
then if you know, financiallyable, you know, I'd love to do
(33:29):
it full time. Absolutely. Interms of my actual painting, or
very kind words, in reality, Ipaint intuitively, I think the
architectural background isinteresting, because it gives me
perhaps a different sense onthings like perspective, I have
spoken a little bit about sortof breaking free of very rigid
(33:50):
black and white lines that yousort of, you know, surrounded by
as an architect and plans, Ithink, sort of love of pure
white surfaces, which comes fromsort of handling paper, and has
sort of meant that my paintingshave a pure white background,
that the paint marks they arebright colours. And I believe
(34:10):
that it's always a littlereaction against years of black
and white, and then then verygestural movement. So you know,
none of this sort of like rulerand pen malarkey is very much
like what do you instinctivelymake, rather than controlling
something? So there's all veryuncontrolled and everything is a
response to the natural worldaround me I'm very interested in
(34:30):
the natural world and recordingthat in the way that I see it. I
have no interest in drawingbuildings at all. I am
interested though, in the marksthat people make on the
landscape. So paths hedges, sortof how we control nature, either
intentionally or unintentionallythat does interest me and yeah,
(34:51):
I absolutely love it. You knowit. I think having I've been
speaking about this a little bitat work internally, I think
having a hobby which I think hasalways been frowned upon, sort
of corporately speaking actuallymakes you a better employee,
because you have an outlet ofsomething you're completely
passionate about. I mean, I amlike the most driven person in
(35:11):
the world. And I'm probably areally irritating employee. And
I've got to an executive levelin a big corporate company. And
you know, happy day means that Ialways want more, having an
outlet allows me to channel thatsort of drive into something
creative, rather thanchannelling it into work. And
you know, I still give, I stillget work 100%. But I'm not
(35:32):
constantly striving for what'sthe next promotion, I don't need
to be CEO anymore. It's allowedme to sort of drive to things
but not have to drive myselfbecause I'm doing that in a
different way. Now, if thatmakes sense, I advocate all my
staff, I advocate, they do stuffoutside of work, I think it's
really important,
Paul O'Neill (35:50):
because it's part of the well being, and
definitely the love of paintingdefinitely comes across from all
of your posts on Instagram,which is fascinating.
Lucy Homer (36:01):
Give a plug for my Instagram, at Lucy Homer Jones,
just in case anyone wants tofollow, therefore, Instagram,
Paul O'Neill (36:09):
and interesting.
It's not just pictures, youexplain the series as well, that
you're going to concentrate on,which is really good.
Lucy Homer (36:15):
I was actually talking about that song the
other day. I think that's anarchitectural thing. So I think
it's really important to explainthe process. And I think a lot
of artists don't do that. And Iis actually the bit that I'm
always really interested inwhat's behind the painting. So I
deliberately do that Ideliberately explain it. It
really helps.
Paul O'Neill (36:35):
Right, finally, back to the built environment.
We asked this question toeveryone, how optimistic are you
about the future of our sector?
Lucy Homer (36:43):
I'm very optimistic about the and I've sort of said
this already. I'm veryoptimistic about the industry as
a whole. And I do think it willget there. I just don't know if
consultants will be part ofthat. And I think that
consultants generally need toreally think about what their
part is going to be in thefuture because I think if
(37:05):
they're not careful, they won'texist. Not you guys obviously,
you'll be fine.
Paul O'Neill (37:10):
Yes, I think everybody's got to evolve and
respond
Lucy Homer (37:14):
is quite a serious point. But I think the people
that I really worried aboutother medium size consultancy
practices and I mean that acrossthe board, it's not just
architects it's all of them. Ithink the big multi discies will
survive, and I think small nichepractices this will survive, but
I think the medium sizedpractices will struggle.
Paul O'Neill (37:33):
Lucy, it's been fantastic talking to you. It's
been a great conversation. Thankyou for joining us.
Lucy Homer (37:38):
It's my pleasure.
Have a good day everyone.
Paul O'Neill (37:40):
Thank you for listening to this edition of
Built Environment Matters.
Please join us again next time.
Credits (37:48):
Thank you for listening to Built Environment Matters. A
podcast brought to you by BrydenWood. Listen and subscribe
wherever you get your favouritepodcast. And you can follow
Bryden Wood on LinkedIn andTwitter.
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