Hi, Caoimhe. How are you?

 

I'm good, thanks, David, and yourself?

 

Very good. Congratulations on being shortlisted in the Women in Property Awards. I think you're in the Innovator of the Year category and the announcement is upcoming. Are you excited? And, on what grounds were you shortlisted? Do you know?

 

Yeah. Thank you so much. It's a real pleasure to get nominated for any awards, but particularly one around women in property. I think it's great. I believe it's a new award and it's nice to see women in the industry being celebrated. When it comes to innovation, I've kind of covered it on a lot of grounds with my career in automation, looking at trying to eliminate repetitive and manual tasks. So, renumbering rooms and things or tasks that architects don't particularly enjoy – but it needs to be done. I have worked on scripting and automating some of those things. But more recently, I have done research on the topic of AI in architecture. And I'm also doing a lot of research into sustainability in the industry, which I'm really excited about.

 

Well, more on AI in a moment. But I think you're also just coming up to completing a project up in Edgbaston, Birmingham, called Corkfield. Could you tell us about that? It's been quite a long time in in the making, hasn't it?

 

Yeah, it's a really special project for me. I've been working on it for six or seven years. So, from inception, through planning and construction. It's been a really exciting project to work on; we're expecting the tenants to start moving in in the coming months; it's a 375-unit build to rent scheme for Patrizia. And, yeah, it's looking fantastic. It's designed around a central courtyard and sits alongside the Edgbaston stadium. And the client has had really amazing connections with the local art centre called MAC - the Midlands Art Centre - which has been a joy as well.

 

How many storeys is it?

 

The tower is 17 storeys in one element, but it steps down to respect the local context as well. But it has amazing views of the cricket ground – which is really special.

Really? Wow. So you can get free tickets, as it were – a free view of the action?

 

(laughs) Yeah, we have a great terrace on the eighth floor and also our internal podium. Yes, it's a pretty special place to live. Especially if you're a cricket fan!

 

Fantastic! Now, you're digital lead at Arcadis, aren't you?  So, what impact is AI having on the practice internally? And what do you expect to emerge over the next five to 10 years in this arena?

 

Yeah, I think AI has been such a hot topic - over the past year, in particular, I think it really hit the headlines, initially with image generation tools like Midjourney and Dali. Those are prompt to image tools. You can type in ‘avocado chairs’, and they will generate a whole series of scenarios, and then obviously there’s ChatGPT. But within the industry, you know, we're starting to see more bespoke use of AI for rendering models, and to test facades, for instance, there's one tool we're looking at. But my favourite use of it at the moment is around sustainability analysis, because there's a tool called Forma that allows you to run daylight, sun, wind, noise analysis, from a conceptual design. And more recently, they're building in analysis around operational energy. So as a designer, we can get that kind of feedback from day one, rather than having to wait to go out to consultants and have that conversation with them. It's been a really exciting development.

 

What of the immediate thought that, actually ,more automation of tasks might mean more redundancies in the sector? Is that too pat? Or is it more a case of freeing up architects’ time to be more creative and attend to other, more important issues?

 

Yeah, I think I'd go for the latter. I'm quite optimistic about the impact. I think we will always need people to drive these engines and be the prompters or generators. So, if anything, I think it'll make our jobs more exciting having to do less of those mundane tasks that I was trying to automate early in my career. And do more of the interesting things, you know, starting to set those challenges for AI and work with it to kind of find solutions that are better. And with the theme of sustainability in mind, hopefully, better for the planet as well.

 

And in terms of the more radical end of this, if you were to loop forward 10 or 20 years, say, are there any thoughts that you have about I always impact that we haven't covered yet in terms of the ambition of the whole area?

 

Yeah, I still see a gap in the data richness kind of it in the UK; I think we struggle a little bit. But you know, things like our plot boundaries and things are still manually drawn on a on a paper map – that element of the sector hasn't been digitized. So as that data gets richer, that potential for automation, and the use of AI, just gets greater. So, I think with that, that kind of extra layer of data, we'll have more sophisticated solutions that we can build on top of.

 

So: as we're drawing to an end, I just wanted to go back to the women in property thing and ask you about your perception of diversity in the professions these days, vis a vis, how it was when you started. Has there been progression, do you think?

 

Yeah, I think we've come on kind of leaps and bounds. That project I mentioned in Edgbaston – we are very fortunate to have a female project manager, a female QS, female interior designer, female on the marketing team. So, we're pretty well represented on that project now. But that wasn't necessarily the case when I started, when I might have been the only woman in the room. So, I'm very delighted to see that kind of change occurring in the industry.

 

Great. One last question. And this is a real left-field question – not Corkfield! Has having an unusual name, Caoimhe, been a boon to you, do you think, in terms of being more memorable and standing out? Or has it been more of a pain in terms of endless spelling and pronunciation corrections to people?

 

(laughs) That's a very good question (laughs). I think it's a good conversation starter. Yeah. I'm very proud to be Irish. And I think having a unique name gives me an opportunity to talk about where I come from. And it's a nice way to start any conversation!

 

Okay, well, from somebody who's got one of the most boring names in the history of the world, thanks very much for talking to me. It's been really great.

 

It's been a pleasure! Thank you, David. Lovely to chat

 

Thank you.