On the sixth floor of Great Portland Estates’ 160 Old Street development, EC1, a workspace revolution is under way. Open-plan seating areas and breakout spaces weave under a twinkling fibre optic ceiling, walls are covered in graffiti by local street artists and, with Christmas fast approaching, gingerbread man cushions are nestled on sofas and bench seats. But the bricks and mortar are only part of the story here at the London Connectory – home to global engineering company Bosch’s urban mobility incubator.
Open since March, this is a space that showcases what can happen when landlord and tenant – in this case GPE and Bosch – informally collaborate. No contract, no demands, no obligations. The result? The launch of an innovative workspace app developed by a fellow Connectory occupier, trialled by Bosch and subsequently rolled out across GPE’s entire London portfolio.
A masterclass in digital transformation off the back of spontaneous co-operation between companies with different remits, here is a place where ideas have been shared and the tech and real estate worlds have truly collided.
The app, which allows tenants to seamlessly access the building, control everything from temperature to light and access an online community, was launched in August. On the landlord side, GPE’s director of workspace and innovation James Pellatt is leading the charge. As for the occupier, Bosch’s urban innovation manager Laura Mack-Titelius is bringing the firepower of a 400,000-strong global engineering company into the mix.
Here the pair talk about their collaboration, what’s next for the app and Mack-Titelius delves into the extent of Bosch’s work around the future of urban mobility.
Old dogs can learn new tricks
This is ultimately the story of a traditional real estate company learning from its tenants, taking that education on board and using it to digitally enhance its existing building stock and future approach to development. In a reassuring nod to the power of bricks, mortar and human interaction when it comes to tech, the driving force behind the whole yarn is the space from which the idea first stemmed.
Not only the test bed for the workspace app in question, Bosch’s London Connectory brought together the right people at the right time. Home to a number of start-ups and companies tackling urban mobility issues, including Transport for London, Nitrous London – a platform facilitating collaboration between start-ups and government and a Connectory tenant – was the company responsible for building the platform.
Apart from the space, Pellatt and Mack-Titelius both attribute the success of the GPE/Bosch relationship down to a lack of imposed formality. “There is no formal partnership between us and Bosch but that’s what I love about what we have done here,” says Pellatt.
“We haven’t officially joined forces. We just communicate well and, along with some of the other tenants in the space, we have worked together to see what happens organically. There is so much potential from a building perspective in terms of how we can work together with Bosch and TfL,” he says, adding that the introduction of the workspace app is part of GPE’s push to create spaces that centre around freedom, flexibility and choice.
He does point out though, that this approach to collaboration has been easier for GPE to achieve than it might be for some other real estate companies given its commitment to focusing on the changing nature of the sector.
“My job title is a good example of that,” he says. “After a good stint as head of projects for GPE I became director of workspace and innovation two years ago because we can see, as a company, a change in the way people work. We have therefore dedicated time and resources to focusing on that. I think anyone hoping to do the things we are doing as part of their day job might struggle. We have more time and freedom to look into these sorts of things and it was the common enthusiasm we share for the future of work with Bosch that fuelled the app.”
“Co-creation doesn’t always mean you have to have a specific contract signed,” adds Mack-Titelius. “For us, the true value has come from naturally building on each others’ competencies. This relaxed form of ideating is basically the Connectory’s whole DNA so it came very naturally to us here.”
Combining skills
The ultimate goal for the development of the app itself is to develop it further so it can plug into what Mack-Titelius describes as “smart quarters”. She believes that with the combination of Bosch’s global smart cities agenda, GPE’s experience in delivering commercial assets in the UK capital, and with support from TfL, the London Connectory will not only be an innovative space, but one that can be successfully knitted into the surrounding urban fabric.
“For so many people the working day starts with travelling from A to B,” she says. “The hope is that the app will integrate buildings into cities so, for example, if you are driving an electric vehicle, where can you charge it? If I travel by bike to the office, where can I put it when I get there, and if I have an e-bike, how do I charge that during the day? All of these issues relate to the transition between the city and the building.”
She adds that data collected and patterns mapped out will feed into future development. “We will be able to see how people are using buildings but also how they are travelling to and from them,” she says. “This will help with the big question: what should a building look like in the future?”
And this is one of the many reasons why Pellatt has rolled the workspace app out across the GPE portfolio. It is not just for the benefit of the tenants in each building, but to start developing a real-time picture of the ebbs and flows of the buildings as one entity. This, he says, will allow for true digital transformation and will help fuel better, more efficient future development.
“It will help us learn and understand what people really want from buildings and we can then feed that directly into the development pipeline,” he says. “With this open, collaborative approach there are so many other options to explore,” he adds. “We had a meeting recently with someone about how we could roll out an electric car hire scheme through the app for our occupiers. There are so many ideas out there.”
We haven’t officially joined forces. We just communicate well and, along with some of the other tenants in the space, we have worked together to see what happens organically
One big question, of course, is around privacy. Building and workspace apps have long-struggled with uptake figures as some people feel uncomfortable about being “tracked” and fear giving away too much personal data. Pellatt concedes this is an issue that needs to be addressed. But he says that as time goes on and there is more understanding around how data is collected and – more importantly – protected, it is proving to be less of a problem.
It’s no surprise to learn that take-up of the GPE app is highest at 160 Old Street, coming in at more than 70% and Pellatt says he is confident the figures will continue to grow across the portfolio as people get used to using the platform. Plus, he insists that using the technology to weed out “slackers” is “absolutely not” what the app has been designed for. “We don’t use it to track people or spy on where they are and how much time they spend in the building or at their desks,” he says. “That level of creepy is just not something we would advocate.”
Get connected
What the app will try to achieve, though, is a stronger connection with the outside world. This is where Bosch’s work around urban mobility comes into play. It is something many people may not be aware the engineering company focuses on. But from automated driving solutions to connected mobility covering everything including automated valet parking, air taxis and e-scooter sharing, the future of how we get from A to B is at the forefront of the group’s thinking.
“By 2050 more than 6bn people will be living in megacities, with urban traffic tripling,” says Mack-Titelius. “Technology really can help provide the solutions needed to address these challenges.”
Part of the issue, of course, comes down to the fact that until buildings are better stitched into the wider smart cities landscape, there will always be a critical gap between infrastructure and the places we travel to and from to work, live and play.
The hope is that with the help of TfL, Nitrous and GPE, a workspace app that emerged from a space on the sixth floor of a building in Old Street will be a step in the right direction.
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