– a Framework for Robotics and Automated Construction.. F.R.A.C.

In my inaugural lecture in the autumn, I suggested that one of our biggest challenges to solve going forward is trying to get free of the tendrils that bind us.Another metaphor is to reduce the viscosity of business.

I don’t know whether you have ever made a non-Newtonian fluid by mixing cornflour with water?As soon as you try to move the fluid its viscosity rises exponentially; in fact, people have walked across swimming pools of the stuff.. For me, both the Devil’s Snare and the cornflour explain one of the key reasons why we fail in doing the great things we are all capable of.We become wedded to one way of doing them and when we don’t get the results we want, we think we just need to try harder, to struggle more or to do more work.

The results are the opposite to what we expect.. You can see this all around us in the season of festivities.We all have our own playbook, a list of traditions, menu, set of rituals.

If doing these things doesn’t make everybody happy we just need to do more of them, try harder, and put more effort in.. We get caught in the Devil’s Snare.. As Hermione Granger knew, the alternative is to stop struggling and bring light to where we are.

One of the play-on-words used by counsellors is not to say “Don’t sit there, do something” but to say “.We need to involve contractors and manufacturers, with contractors pushing their supply chains to make sustainability-led improvements in their products and materials..

Yes, there are challenges, but if this industry (not famed for collaboration) would commit to working together, they are surmountable.We’ve definitely seen an increase in collaboration in the past months.

There’s a lot of enthusiasm around sustainability in design, but we need it to manifest.The next generation are incredibly aware of the climate emergency and these types of issues, but we can’t wait for them.