At Connected Places Catapult we’re working to explore the concept of digital twins – what digital twins are, how they’re being used, what they should and could be used for, and how they might be used to address challenges in the built environment.

This has involved exploring Digital Twins from concept to application; from looking into the origins of the term and its history of uses in different industries, to the practicalities of actually creating one for a real building. 

For the latter we’ve been working to create a digital twin of our own building, the ABIS (Advanced Building Information System), a system to bring together and visualise data on occupancy and environmental conditions. We’ll also be publishing a series of blogs on what digital twins are, a “recipe” for creating one, the lessons we learnt from creating our own, and how we see some of the potential futures of city-level digital twins.