3D Repo have come out on top as winners of the Mayor of London’s Civic Innovation Challenge, winning a cash prize for their innovative 3D solution that aims to make the planning system more accessible.
The awards ceremony took place last night at the London City Hall to mark the end of the challenge which originally started with more than 125 entrants, there to take on the most pressing problems facing London. The Mayor of London’s Civic Innovation Challenge not only delivers benefits to Londoners, but also offers a fantastic opportunity for tech start-ups with a route to market.
London’s Chief Digital Officer, Theo Blackwell, said:
“The Civic Innovation Challenge is a unique opportunity for tech companies to tackle some of the most pressing problems facing our capital. I’m really impressed with the calibre of entrants this year and the standard of competition means I’m sure we’ll see some really exciting projects taken to the next level.”
The winning solution was that of 3D Repo’s, who designed an open-source 3D planning portal (PlanBase) based on their award-winning digital construction platform. PlanBase operates as a stand-alone website but can also be embedded into existing planning portals where residents and planners alike can review proposals in 3D and comment on them where it matters most. The people of London will be able to access PlanBase via a web browser and drop pins based on a specific topic and provide feedback directly in 3D.
Dr Jozef Dobos, Founder & CEO of 3D Repo said:
“Current planning processes struggle to effectively communicate the right information to the public. Information overload and 2D architectural diagrams that most people cannot comprehend are the norm. 3D Repo’s PlanBase makes it easier to digest that information in 3D, and the online platform will make it more accessible for everyone to have their say.”
A survey with over 1,000 respondents by Talk London overwhelmingly revealed that 87% of Londoners care strongly about new developments and would want to engage with planning if it was easier to do so, with 70% of those people surveyed suggesting it would ideally be done in 3D.
The tech start-up employs just 9 people but is already transforming how construction projects are designed and delivered by democratising data, mitigating risk, and reducing complexity for architects, engineers, and contractors. 3D Repo’s collaborative online platform has already been used on some of the most challenging construction projects in the UK including King’s Cross station remodelling, Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, and London’s Wood Wharf District.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
Ben Davies
3D Repo
+44 (0)20 3995 4491
ben.davies@3drepo.com
3D Repo
3D Repo is a multi-award-winning company offering a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the cloud. Instead of architects, consultants and contractors sharing massive proprietary files in a costly and time-consuming manner, they can simply point their web browser to an encrypted knowledge base to examine each project stage virtually. With 3D Repo, users can manage model revisions and highlight potential issues using live collaboration tools, which allow the whole project team to work from a single source of truth. 3D Repo also includes patent-pending technology to identify real-time changes and clashes in 3D models. By comparing the actual geometry of a model rather than underlying, software specific object IDs or labels, 3D Diff Change Detection can identify changes between models from different sources. 3D Diff Clash Detection automatically highlights intersections, and therefore potential conflicts, between different types of models.