Lendlease unveils Podium for Development – a pioneering digital ecosystem to build better and faster

• Surbana Jurong will be the go-to-market partner for a platform-based solution which connects developers, architects, engineers, suppliers and other players to create sustainable outcomes with greater certainty at speed and scale.
• Developed in Singapore to address challenges in the built environment, this groundbreaking digital platform facilitates cross-industry collaboration and encourages a reimagining of the creation process.

Singapore, 17 October 2023 – Lendlease today announced that it will be partnering with Surbana Jurong as the go-to-market partner to deliver Podium for Development (P4D) – a transformative digital ecosystem that connects developers, designers, and the supply chain, revolutionizing construction productivity and promoting sustainable building practices.

Traditionally, the design process requires months of detailed design work and engineering before the building can be drawn and documented to capture the full complexity of the design. After the back-and-forth between the many parties in the design process, the plans are then tendered to find a builder.

Often, a builder may suggest using different materials or components that do not match the exact design intent. This can lead to additional time and money spent on redesigning to accommodate these changes, resulting in wastage.

The inadequate communication and collaboration between stakeholders all along the value chain creates design errors – accounting for 38% of construction disputes – and cost and time overruns with just 31% of all projects coming within 10% of proposed budgets. The industry has also recorded a less than 1% increase in productivity a year over the past 20 years as compared to 2.8% for the total global economy, while contributing 40% of the world’s total global greenhouse gas emissions.

By harnessing design automation algorithms and computational capabilities within an open ecosystem, Lendlease aims to facilitate construction using prefabricated components directly supplied by manufacturers. This approach promotes Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA), which is more productive and sustainable than traditional methods of construction.

Building from Reality

With P4D, Lendlease seeks to collaborate with other developers globally and unify these fragmented nodes in the building process into an open digital platform that accelerates the entire process from design to supply, enabling DfMA.

The platform choreographs advanced computational algorithms to match design requirements with the supplier defined kit-of-parts to generate building designs. These design models automatically account for building specifications under prevailing regulations such as identified land-use, height restrictions and other planning parameters for residential, industrial, commercial and eventually, mixed-use development applications.

P4D allows detailed building models to be automatically generated based on a menu of options which include number of units for residential developments, the desired floor-to-ceiling height and loading limit for industrial applications and even the estimated cost of the project and timeframe.

More importantly, it can generate a building based on the optimal components, fit for purpose from suppliers. This provides confidence early in the design process that ensures greater accuracies and certainties right from the start.

Creating an ecosystem to drive sustainable outcomes for everyone

Lendlease is in advanced negotiations with other developers and building authorities in Singapore and elsewhere on leveraging P4D to design and deliver projects in the near future. The partnership with Surbana Jurong seeks to deliver this product – drawing on the rich experience and expertise of the wider Lendlease Digital ecosystem in Singapore, Silicon Valley, Sydney and Milan and support by the Economic Development Board of Singapore (EDB) – to the global built environment sector.

“As an industry, we need to be building better at speed and in scale. Our ambition for P4D is to re-imagine how we create by changing entrenched methodologies and behaviours. This is why we are working with like-minded partners such as Surbana Jurong and inviting other developers and players in the built environment industry to join us in this journey as we promote best sustainable building practices that can be replicated and benefit other communities globally.”

Bill Ruh, Chief Executive Officer, Lendlease Digital

“As a multidisciplinary global urban and infrastructure consultancy, Surbana Jurong is heavily vested in smarter ways of designing and engineering that cut costs and time, and optimise precious resources.  P4D gives architects, designers and suppliers greater control to drive higher productivity in the built environment sector, as well as net zero and zero waste outcomes at the earliest stages of a project life cycle to reduce embodied carbon levels. We are excited about the prospect of collaborating with multiple project stakeholders on the cloud at the design stage. This is the next big step for the industry to bring Singapore’s Built Environment Industry Transformation Roadmap to life.”

Yeo Choon Chong, ASEAN Chief Executive Officer, Surbana Jurong

“By generating a building in 15 to 20 minutes instead of the months involved in designing a building using current methods, P4D leverages what is replicable and repeatable in building design via AI-powered algorithms. With up to 70% of the work involved in designing a building done automatically by P4D, human designers can focus their energy and efforts on more complex and value-added work.”

Richard Kuppusamy, Chief Product Officer, Podium

For more information:

Benjamin Ng
Lendlease Digital
[email protected]

Geraldine Cheong
Surbana Jurong
[email protected]

Patson Goh
Omnicom Public Relations Group
+65 8138 8887
[email protected]

About Lendlease

Lendlease is a globally integrated real estate group with operations in Australia, Asia, Europe and the United States.

We create places where communities thrive.

Our core capabilities are reflected in our operating segments of Investments, Development and Construction. The combination of these three segments provides us with a sustainable competitive advantage in delivering innovative integrated solutions for our customers. We are known as 联实 in Chinese. For more information, please visit: www.lendlease.com

About Surbana Jurong

Surbana Jurong Group is a global urban, infrastructure and managed services consulting firm, with over 70 years of track record in successful project delivery. Headquartered in Singapore, the group has a global talent pool of about 16,000 across Surbana Jurong and our member companies AETOS, Atelier Ten, B+H, KTP, Prostruct, RBG, SAA, Sino-Sun and SMEC, based in more than 120 offices in over 40 countries. They include architects, designers, planners, engineers and other specialists driven by progressive thinking and creative ideas to help shape a better future. Surbana Jurong has built more than a million homes in Singapore, created master plans in more than 60 countries and developed over 100 industrial parks globally. In Vietnam, Surbana Jurong has gained significant success in the fields of master plan, urban design, residential township planning and architectural design.

About Lendlease Podium

Harnessing over 60 years of applied experience in the property industry, Podium is a digital platform product that offers solutions across property from design, construction, and supply chain to space utilisation and customer experience insights.

Podium adopts an interoperable, data-centric approach to weave a digital thread throughout the entire real estate delivery and management value chain. This approach spans from the initial decision-making stages in origination and design development, through delivery and ongoing operational performance of the asset, all the way to how our customers utilize these spaces.

This data-centric perspective empowers a cradle-to-cradle philosophy in shaping the built environment, which results in creating more sustainable buildings, enhanced experiences for people, ultimately creating better places for all.

For more information on Lendlease Digital the Podium platform, please visit: https://www.lendleasepodium.com/