Sometimes it may seem to us that while other fields have risen to the wave of innovation, the real estate field is a bit stagnant, and old working methods still dominate the field. But in fact, the real estate arena is increasingly developing in new directions and allowing the entry of revolutionary technologies that streamline the method, enable the construction of buildings in a shorter time, with higher quality and at lower costs. The four trends before you will rewrite not only the way residential buildings are built, but also the way they better serve the tenants of tomorrow.
Project management using a drone
Constructing a residential building is a complex project that requires the intervention of countless professionals and requires precision and long-term thinking, all of which amounts to many hours of work and quite a bit of money.
But in recent years, the real estate sector has recruited several technologies that immensely streamline project management from the planning stages to completion - from computer vision technology that recruits drones to measure terrain routes in preparation for construction and examine deviations from the route during construction, data-based technologies and machine learning that enable decision-making on the construction site, to special measurement systems for examining the level of finish of plaster and flooring work.
3D concrete printing
We were all amazed this year to hear about a living heart printed on a 3D printer, and if you can print a heart, then why not a building? Five years ago, a Chinese company used concrete printing technologies and announced that it had printed 10 houses, each 200 square meters in area, in less than a day, while at the beginning of this year, the world's first printed bridge was inaugurated in China, the construction of the bridge was done in just 450 hours.
The concrete printing technique, which allows for the construction of a structure in a very short time, is gaining momentum and in the past year has begun to move from the research field to the field. The US recently built an entire military base that was printed directly on the ground, and in the Netherlands an entire residential complex is currently being built that includes five printed houses.
Zero energy for a green future
The latest trend in green construction is the 'zero-energy building.' This refers to a building that takes advantage of environmental conditions and generates all the energy it uses itself, thus wasting zero energy. Zero-energy construction begins with the design of the building, its location in relation to the terrain, light openings and interior spaces so that it can maintain maximum climate conditions within the building.
But to reach net zero, the building needs to generate its own energy, and it does so using renewable energy sources such as solar panels. In Israel, the field is still in its infancy. So far, the leading city is Hadera, which established the first zero-energy kindergarten and even a courthouse. In the US, about 5,000 residential homes have already been built using this method, and California has announced that by 2020, another 100,000 zero-energy housing units will be built.
The Uber of real estate
The term 'co-living' may take you back to your days as students in the big city, but in fact it is an innovative way of thinking in the field of housing based on the idea of the collaborative economy. The collaborative economy means utilizing resources and their surplus more efficiently by sharing. Just as Uber allows drivers to use their cars and disguise them as a transportation service, or just as WeWork makes optimal use of real estate space to provide as many companies as possible with a work area, so shared living, or 'co-living', creates a living area that on the one hand provides a private living area in a housing unit and on the other hand shared areas such as guest spaces, spacious dining rooms, a laundry room or a shared courtyard. Co-living not only allows for better utilization of resources, in a time when we are all closing ourselves off and congregating behind screens, co-living offers a new way to maintain a thriving community life.
