Timo Schroeder
What convinced you to become part of the hej.build Architectural Advisory Board?
The industry and the profession of architect are facing major challenges and changes. AI, generative design tools and the industrialization of construction will create completely new value chains. Industry and planning as well as industry and clients must move closer together. In the future, we will experience completely different processes than today. To achieve this, we as an industry need to understand technology, interact together and work on solutions. I look forward to helping manufacturers and architects benefit from the transformation of the market as a member of the hej.build advisory board.
What are you most interested in at the moment in terms of architecture, interior design or building products?
The construction industry has historically been subject to very long innovation cycles – cycles in the form of decades. Now we are in the midst of the digital transformation. AI, algorithms and robotics are bringing innovation cycles to our industry that take anywhere from a few months to two years. The industry is not prepared for this.
Technologies will be combined to form ecosystems, ecosystems will create new added value and give rise to new market participants and segments. More and more tasks will be taken over by agents or GenAI.
More and more processes will shift to the client. As a manufacturer, it is important to establish the right sales channels at an early stage, as a planner to redefine your own role and as a planner and construction company to work together to bridge the gap between planning and construction.
However, there is also undreamt-of potential here. Studies predict over 70% more profit potential in the construction and real estate industry thanks to AI and robotics. Industrially prefabricated buildings consume fewer resources and CO₂. More influences can be taken into account at the same time during the planning stage, enabling sustainable buildings right from the design phase.
Such digital value chains will not only enable us to offer affordable housing for the general population again, but also to build it sustainably.
What is good architecture/interior design for you – in a few words?
On average, we spend 90% of our day indoors. Architecture must provide us with these spaces in line with our needs and at the same time unexpectedly stimulate our minds and senses.
Is there a current highlight or an all-time favorite project that you would like to tell us about?
I was BIM manager in the pilot project for the first BIM-based building application in Germany. This project showed that we in Germany are not just complaining about the status quo, but that we can also change it. We need a transformation and therefore courageous people who are prepared to set up and implement projects or markets outside the norm.
The construction and real estate industry is stuck in its processes and methods. Why is the comprehensive transformation so difficult, and what does this have to do with Kodak?
On the one hand, the construction and real estate industries are moving further and further apart from each other. Supply and demand should actually be moving towards each other. Secondly, these are two highly fragmented sectors. Both of these factors make it difficult for new technologies to achieve a high level of market penetration.
There have been at least ten very »rich« years in the industry. Too little was reinvested here.
The Kodak effect will be frequently observed in the construction and real estate industry in the future: Fear of transparency, fear of breaking down knowledge silos, fear of sharing data and processes and relying on new technologies or ecosystems. There is a fear of cannibalizing existing, possibly powerful structures in one's own company. This is exactly what happened to Kodak with its digital camera technology. Ultimately, it led to the downfall of Kodak, as the company failed to further develop its business and compete with its own films.
We also have the master builder syndrome: we want to develop and create everything ourselves in the industry. In 2023, the main construction industry in Germany achieved a turnover of 162.6 billion euros. In comparison, Amazon invested around 79 billion euros in research and development in the same year - that's around 48.6% of the German construction industry's total turnover. We need to pool resources and work together on solutions instead of each working in their own silos.
