Aerial view of a residential neighborhood showing houses with red, brown, and gray roofs, green lawns, and intertwined streets.

What now for real estate?

The pandemic has had a huge impact on our built environment, but so too has the economic fallout. Any economic recovery, whenever or however it may come, is going to rely on our ability to create physical environments where we feel safe, as well as new business models that take account of our new reality.

So in this episode we’ll be asking, “What now for the real estate sector?” And where might the opportunities lie for innovation in how we imagine, design and operate our buildings and physical assets?

In this sixth and final episode of season one of Connected Places, Professor Greg Clark speaks to Rosemary Feenan, Executive Vice President of QuadReal how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the real estate sector and cities around the world.

We’ll also be hearing from Yalena Coleman, Solution Architect for Applied Data & Technology at Connected Places. We’ll be talking about the Catapult’s Urban Technology Testbed, and how we’ve turned our own office building in London into a place of experimentation for businesses and innovators.

Music on this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Phill Ward Music (www.phillward.com)

Show notes

Rosemary Feenan is Executive Vice President of QuadReal, a global real estate investment group headquartered in Vancouver. An expert on real estate futures, urbanisation, city competitiveness and technology in real estate, she was previously Director of Global Research Programmes at JLL. Rosemary has served on the Boards of Chesterton International, the Urban Land Institute, the Centre for Cities, and she sits on the World Economic Forum’s ‘Future of Cities and Urbanisation’ Council.

Yalena Coleman is Solution Architect for Applied Data and Technology at the Connected Places Catapult. She has played a leading role in shaping the Catapult’s Urban Technology Testbed programme, which facilitates the testing of new and emerging technologies in the built environment and how data-driven decision making can be harnessed across the public and private sectors. Yalena has worked in multiple industries across the technology sector in Europe, Asia and Africa, including software development, IoT, digital strategy and cybersecurity.

If you’d like to know more about QuadReal’s Oak Ridge development, you can learn more here.

To learn more about what the Catapult is doing to support innovators and place leaders rise to the challenge of COVID-19, check out our Post-Pandemic Places Hub which explores the market opportunities the pandemic is creating or accelerating, including a briefing on the built environment which includes real estate and asset management.

To apply to be part of our upcoming MK:5G Accelerator Programme and the work we are doing with businesses working on 5g technology solutions, please click here.