Joseph Michael Daniels Explains Digital Twins and Construction’s Bigger Picture

Having built the first net zero connected buildings across four continents and raising £40 million upon founding Etopia, Joseph is pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

Talking with Dr Graham Kelly, Joseph is very candid about his earlier years and becoming homeless at the age of 15, which was a key driver in his ambitions to succeed. Joseph shares his thought processes on seeing things through a data driven perspective and how data is a nucleus for change.

Let’s begin with what is your view of a digital twin?
A digital twin is more than just what you think of as a copy of a single building. A digital twin is like a Google map!

A Google map is a digital copy, it is a replica of real world with more accuracy. An OS map could be classified as a two dimensional digital twin with Google being 3D!

A lot of things that we refer to in digital twins in building is what I would call 3D digital twin. It’s taking an object file with its measurements and making a digital copy.

But we can then introduce live data so it’s constantly changing and updating.

Would you agree that in the built environment we have shifted to an information first approach and where does this bring value?
The construction industry has changed massively in recent years, but you cannot go and change pieces of a system and expect it to innovate and rapidly deploy it with digitisation.

One approach that we’re taking in the planning process for Bolton, in Greater Manchester is joined up thinking, circular thinking for collaboration between the heads of mobility, green space, planning and regeneration. By doing this we’re able to look at place first, and what data is available to create digital twins that will allow us to measure things like carbon performance.

We are creating a visual, real world experience that everyone can comment on, like a multiplayer video game.

What are the major blockers to digital change and digital twin adoption?
I’ll be straight. The major blocker that we see at the moment is interpretation. Misunderstanding of what technology can do and people applying their own interpretation of ability.

It’s like Tesla rocking up and saying your car is going to drive itself. You charge on electric, but you can still go 0 to 60 in 2.6 seconds, and you go no, no!

People have disbelief which is why we’ve taken the approach of collaboration rather than rather than drastic change. It’s about making things easier to understand and allowing every stakeholder to be a part of the process.

You have built on most continents, what are your global view of market trends when it comes to digital developments?
My life, for many years has been in modern methods of construction and being on the ground with the tools. This has afforded me the ability to see the fragilities in the system, I think some of the trends are international investment and diversification. Whilst crypto isn’t the answer to it all, it really shows that there’s a hunger for investment across different areas. That’s the international investment coming in. That’s the investment going out.  I find that very interesting at the moment.

The investment landscape is changing with more focus on real estate plus a strong move away from oil to clean energy.

People are starting to realise the power of data with AI more. How we can collect data to simulate cities in real time. Allowing us to understand the live performance of buildings – the future is data and how we learn from it.

What does the next 40 years of construction look like?
We will see new trade skills that don’t exist today and then jobs will be replaced by robots. That’s a guarantee!

If you look at the technology advancement and investment, and that’s not a bad thing, I think we demonise against this kind of AI revolution, because everyone’s too busy watching Terminator instead of realising this can really happen.

The reality is that these kind of system advancements are going to allow us to really grow and really flourish.