Inventing Construction

The construction industry is known for deadlines, pressure, difficult conversations, high expectations, commercial risk, long hours, and environments that can sometimes feel negative, reactive, or ego-driven. But what if pressure is not only created by the project, the client, the deadline, or the people around us? What if pressure is also created by how we interpret, carry, and react to those sit...

The construction industry often treats handover as the end of the project, instead of what it really is: the beginning of a building’s operational life. A lot of building data is created every year, and most of it is lost the day the building opens. The moment the building is handed over to operations, most project information becomes surprisingly difficult to use, or is delivered too late. In tod...

The reality is this: our buildings are full of surplus energy. And we waste most of it. Across offices, hotels, hospitals, and data centres, enormous amounts of heat are generated every single day. Ventilation systems blow it away. Cooling systems spend electricity to remove it. Mechanical systems operate in isolation, unaware that the building next door might need exactly the energy being thrown...

Walk onto almost any construction site today and you’ll find the same paradox. Projects worth tens or hundreds of millions are being delivered with cutting-edge design tools, advanced materials, and increasingly strict sustainability targets. Yet when it comes to documenting what actually happens on site, many teams still fall back on the same tools they’ve used for decades. Spreadsheets. Emails. ...

Cost and carbon are measured in two different worlds. Clients want lower carbon. But decisions are based on cost. Not because they don’t care. Not because they lack ambition. But because the information rarely arrives aligned. In many construction projects, cost consultants work in one silo. Sustainability consultants work in another. They use different assumptions. Different structures. Different...

7 out of 9 planetary boundaries have already been crossed. That’s seven critical global processes that regulate the stability and resilience of the Earth. For years, sustainability in construction has focused primarily on carbon. But planetary boundaries introduce something far more systemic. They redefine the limits within which humanity, and therefore our industry can safely operate. In today's...

If you read the headlines, you might think data centres are the problem. They use energy. They take up space. They create “just a few jobs.” They’re described as grey, windowless boxes that quietly sit in industrial zones, consuming power and giving little back. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: If you switched them off tomorrow, modern society would end. In today's podcast episode, we sit down...

The construction industry is moving faster than ever. Digital twins. Information management frameworks. AI-assisted workflows. Data-driven decision-making. Asset-focused delivery. Clients demanding structured data, not just drawings. Meanwhile, universities operate in three- to five-year curriculum cycles, shaped by accreditation requirements, professional standards, and institutional governance....

The construction industry has a people problem.  Across markets, firms are struggling to hire and retain building surveyors, quantity surveyors, project managers, and estimators. The demand for construction is growing, regulation is increasing, risk is rising, and yet more people are leaving the industry than entering. In today's episode we're talking to Phil Chell, CEO and Co-founder of Chiron.ai...

Thinking about concrete as a sustainable material might sound a bit weird. But when you look past the headline statistics regarding its carbon impact, you start to see a material that is undergoing a quiet, chemical revolution. In this episde we explore this topic with Andrea Charlson, a Senior Sustainability Specialist and Circular Economy Lead at The Concrete Centre in the UK. With a career span...

The real competitive advantage in construction isn’t technology, contracts, or delivery models. It’s people. It's highly competent people that enjoy and experiences meaning in the work they do everyday.  In this episode Elia is joined by Antonio, Director at KOSMOS, to a conversation about why he joined KOSMOS and how construction companies can stop offering “jobs” and start building careers – and...

Talking about data in construction might sound like a technicality reserved for IT departments. But when you look at how projects are actually run—the "headless chicken" scenarios on-site, the reactive decision-making, and the billions lost to inefficiency—you realize that data isn't just a tool; it is the foundation of the industry’s future - but we have to do it right and remain in control. In t...

Starting a conversation about programming in construction might not sound like a recipe for excitement. But give it a minute. When you zoom in on what professional services truly mean in this industry, the endless Excel sheets, the risk of human error, and the sheer amount of admin, you start to see the problem. And with it, the solution. In this episode Ross has a conversation with Christian Kong...

Talk about transforming construction, and you’ll often get eye-rolls or buzzword fatigue. But listen to those that are the most passionate about this topic, and you’ll find a much deeper story—one of culture, people, missed opportunities, and real, actionable change.  In this episode Ross sat down with Paul Bingham from Smart Connected Buildings and Digital Construction Forum, who shared decades o...

When most people hear "construction innovation," they picture software teams in office buildings or tech startups far from the dust and noise of real projects. But innovation is happening where the concrete is poured and the cranes swing. And it's not abstract. It's practical, scalable, and saves time and money. In this episode, we've invited on Casper Hertz Nielsen, Process and Innovation Chief a...

When we talk about the future of construction, we often focus on carbon goals, modular design, or project delivery speed. But there’s a quieter crisis growing behind the scenes: we lack the people who both understand construction and speak the language of data, programming, automation, or AI. It’s not just a skills gap. It’s a profile gap. And if we don’t start building bridges between domains, we...

Digitalising an entire industry doesn’t happen overnight. Especially not construction, an industry built on tradition, relationships, and physical outcomes. But when you zoom in on how digitalisation unfolds, policy shifts, public sector influence, tech adoption, and cultural change, you begin to see the slow, deliberate path forward. In this podcast episode, Ross sat down with Troels Hoff, direct...

We'd like to thank you all for listening to Inventing Construction. 

Let’s face it: pharmaceutical construction isn’t your average building site. You’re not just dealing with concrete and steel; you’re dealing with regulatory scrutiny, sterile environments, and equipment that costs more than most houses. And in Denmark’s growing life sciences sector, the pressure to get it right, first time, on time, is only increasing. Yet the industry seems to be struggling with...

There’s a kind of quiet chaos in the construction industry. Not the noisy kind with jackhammers and rebar, but the hidden kind, buried in emails, ignored in meeting notes, and overlooked in the schedule. It’s called change. And we’re still not managing it properly. We've invited João Dias, a civil engineer with 15 years of global experience in project controls. From West Africa to the Caribbean, D...

Contractors are starting to hire external quantity surveying consultants. But that's just one of many changes shaping the future of quantity surveying for contractors.  Tom Haley, Managing Director at Quantik, and his team help contractors with quantity surveying services everyday. What changes has he seen over the past years? And what does the future hold in these trying times of ever diminishing...

Talking about recruitment in the construction industry might not sound like the most gripping topic. But once you look closely at the way many firms still hire, the endless CV pushing, the rushed job ads, the costly mis-hires, you start to see why change is overdue. In this episode, Ross sits down with John Murphy, Founder and Director of Anzurra, to discuss why the traditional recruitment model i...

Content marketing isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think of scaffolding, concrete pours, or tenders. But maybe it should be. In this episode we discuss what content marketing is, how it can change your construction business, and how it can perhaps lead to a more transparent and improved industry. We are joined by our very own podcast production team: Jakob Sloth Linneberg...

Starting a conversation about procurement in construction might not sound like a recipe for excitement. But give it a minute. Because when you zoom in on what procurement really means in this industry, the endless Excel sheets, the email ping-pong, the scope confusion, the copy-paste chaos, you start to see the problem. In this episode we've invited Paul Heming, Co-Founder and CEO at C-Link, a sof...

Starting a business in the Construction Industry is never simple. The shifting standards, digitalization and cultural fragmentation, are a challenge few fully understand until they’re in it. But luckily, a new generation of digital consultants is taking the leap anyway. Facing the challenges in an industry often lacking in communication and efficiency. In today's episode we've invited Anas Ayoub,...