Commercial Construction Trends in 2017

The wave of technology has instilled a new transformation in almost all the businesses today. The imprint of on-going transformation and its implications even reflects on the robust construction industry. The commercial construction companies in India have also witnessed the gradual shift with preference on adopting new technologies to build green and self-sustained cities.

Here are some of the top trends to watch out for in 2017 –

1. Smart buildings –Leveraging information technology to create a smart building is an overall theme. The entire ‘Smart City’ program was also envisioned keeping in mind the need to create these futuristic cities with next-generation infrastructure to be digitally connected. Use of technology is more prevalent in the commercial building construction even in India. From regular automated processes to using high-tech sensors and gadgets to controlusual building operations like air-conditioning, ventilation, lighting or even security, the technology allows space optimisation, reduce energy requirements thereby minimising the environmental impact.
2. Pre fabrication –Time is a crucial factor in infrastructure projects involving enormous costs. Prefabrication is been used in the commercial construction industry in India for years now to effectively manage on-time delivery of projects. Prefabricated parts like stairs, bridge or even entire homes are constructed off-site in standard plug-in puzzle pieces. The new and emerging trends in information modeling will further enable better collaboration on projects as well as applying prefabrication techniques on complex projects for even faster delivery.
3. Construction robots –Skilled labour shortage is quite often a sore issue for the commercial construction industry and can be hugely detrimental with mounting costs arising out of overdue projects. Today, we already have assisted-machines to handle massive projects and demolition robots to help bring down huge construction sites. With advancing technology and robotics, we can soon have robots performing masonry construction with precision. A mobile fabrication unit proficient in performing construction tasks has already been developed by R-O-B Technologies with the help of Gramazio and Kohler and should be on a definite watch-list.
4. Energy modeling –Commercial buildings consume massive amounts of energy. The energy modeling is crucial to create self-sustained and financially viable constructions. Innovative designs which integrate recycled energy, leverage natural energy resources to power buildings or even uses energy efficient materials to reduce consumption can result in 70 percent more energy efficient buildings than other average commercial ones. Many software tools like Sefaira and Autodesk FormIt now easily allow performing complex energy analysis during the conceptual design stage itself.
5. Building Information Modeling (BIM) –While it has been in trend for years, its growing necessity will now have a considerable impact on commercial construction in India. BIM aids in building virtual models for better analysis. BIM supports creating more versions of virtual models through the design phase for comparative design and efficiency analysis. It can be easily extended to virtual reality for a better sense of scale and space.

The technology is set to be a major game-changer in the commercial construction business in coming years. Staying up-to-date with the latest in construction technology can help in making informed decisionsto increase productivity as well as control costs for delivering new-age construction projects.

About This Author

Aakash Group Aakash Group is a construction and property development Joined: June 28th, 2017