Intro: You are listening to The Digital Engineer. In this podcast, we bridge the gap between our work as engineers and the digital world. In this three-part series, we update you on the housing challenge and how digital technology can help.

Pieter-Bas: Nice of you to listen to this podcast. My name is Pieter-Bas de Visser and in this series of three I talk to three specialists who each work on projects related to housing. Today I talk to Eva Geerlings. She works at Witteveen+Bos as a sustainable area development and geodata consultant. Eva works with a lot of data and digital platforms on a daily basis. Eva, nice to have you here, welcome. Can you tell us a bit about your background?

Eva: I have a background in social geography and planning and did a master's in GIS. That's geographical information systems. And during my master's I ended up at Witteveen+Bos as an intern and I still work there now.

Pieter-Bas: What kind of internship did you do?

Eva: I did an internship that was about health-driven design. That is a platform we are developing on 'how do we design healthy cities and how do we use geographical data' to give feedback to designers on health topics. What I did was investigate how we can use data about health in the city to give feedback to designers. So how can you use real-time data in a design process to score designs on health themes.

Pieter-Bas: Okay, and so from there rolled on to a job at Witteveen+Bos, nice.

Eva: Yes, I actually liked it a lot. I have always been interested in the city because so much happens in a city and there are so many challenges. And I also think that with my study background I can make quite an interesting connection in how we use data in the city to make cities more liveable for people.

Pieter-Bas: So if I understand it correctly, you are combining a lot of geographical data to be able to analyse and determine the effects of measures?

Eva: Yes, and we do that mainly so that we can make the objectives a municipality has, for example, in terms of mobility, climate adaptation or the healthy living environment concrete and also measurable, so that we are not just talking about we want a healthy city for everyone. But that we really investigate what does this healthy city mean? How do we express that in measurable indicators? And what are all those aspects of a healthy and a sustainable city? And how can we also weigh them up against each other, but also, for instance, against the revenues or the costs it entails.

Pieter-Bas: And then few new cities are actually being built, right? So basically you're always dealing with quite a framework in which you have to operate. What are examples of data that you include in that?

Eva: We now do a lot with mobility data, so simulation models for flows of pedestrians and cyclists, but also of public transport use, but also data on heat. There is often a heat island effect in cities, but also effects of wind in the city. The somewhat softer sides can also be expressed in data, such as how people experience a city and perceive green space. Of what is the distance from residents to greenery or to playgrounds or to sports spots.

Pieter-Bas: I can imagine that you then have to deal with many disciplines within Witteveen+Bos. Many colleagues from all walks of life whom you consult. Do you notice that this also changes your role as an engineer? Instead of having a single niche specialism, you are now involved in a pretty umbrella activity.

Eva: I think originally at an engineering firm, mainly engineers work. I don't have a civil engineering background myself and what I see is that more and more colleagues are coming in with more of an integral background, like mine. And that's also because projects we all work in, and I mainly work in housing projects, are also becoming increasingly complex. Because it is no longer just about making one design that serves one purpose, but designs increasingly serve multiple purposes and also all kinds of social objectives that are involved. In my view, it is really important to work on this with an integrated team and to ensure that people from the various disciplines are also talking about the same thing.

Pieter-Bas: A measure locally can have some effect further on in an area, of course. If you were to look at that purely locally, it's not going to work.

Eva: Yes, and you quickly think in adverse effects, but every development or redevelopment that we design also brings many opportunities. So it's no longer just a road that we design, but we also look at, so to speak, the verge next to it.

Pieter-Bas: The biodiversity. Can you give a concrete example of what kind of measures or what you put into that bin of data and what comes out of that for, say, advice for a municipality? An example of a project you worked on for example.

Eva: An example of a project I am currently working on is Area Development Lincolnpark in Hoofddorp. I find that a very nice and challenging project. It's a meadow now and 1,600 homes will be built there. And the biggest challenge is also to meet the housing shortage. So the most important thing is that there will be housing there, but at the same time we have to make it as sustainable and healthy as possible. It is an area close to Schiphol Airport, so we have to ensure good air quality. An example of the data we used: in the area of health, analyses were mainly done on mobility and heat stress. Also quite interesting, what we are working on now, is circular area development. One of the municipality's objectives is to make this area development as circular as possible. So we investigated what does that mean and how can we do that? We also investigated what kind of material is needed for such an area development. And that is all data that you can make measurable. And how do we ensure that we can limit the CO2 emissions from the use and deployment of all those materials through measures.

Pieter-Bas: How should I picture that? That at some point the materials of those houses can also be reused or something like that?

Eva: Circularity is quite a catch-all term. It is often said that in 2050, I think we should do everything circular. And that is quite a broad concept and also something that is very important and plays a lot of role in housing projects. And how we approach circularity within housing projects is that the different levels you have of impact within a circular housing construction. The most impactful thing you could do is not to build at all anyway. That would then be the most circular. That way you avoid using materials. But yes, we do have that task. We want everyone to have a roof over their heads, so those houses have to be built, but we have to do it with as few materials as possible. So in the early phases of projects, we have to think about whether these houses that are going to be built need the way we have designed them now or whether the same material for the same house could accommodate more people. Or like sharing facilities, is it necessary for everyone to have everything in their own home or can we also ensure that residents in a neighbourhood can share things with each other, like washing machines or shared cars. You see that now increasingly in housing projects. But also gardens. Is it necessary for everyone to have their own patch of land with a fence around it, or can we share that more and more, and then you can look at the material that really needs to be there, so the houses that really need to be built. Can we reuse materials for that or can we use materials that are as sustainable as possible, that's also a very important one. Can we build it so that in 50 years or in 100 years we could change the function again without having to demolish everything? Or can we build it so that we could reuse the materials? In a different way, so I think that could also be a solution. How I envisage the future is that, for example, houses will increasingly be manufactured as a kind of construction kit. Kind of prefab houses.

Pieter-Bas: Yes or 3D concrete printed?

Eva: 3D concrete printed, for example, so that they can also be taken apart later and used again. That we don't build something where the only way you get rid of it is by demolition.

Pieter-Bas: Yes interesting, because then you are talking about a totally new area to be built, right? And on the one hand, I can imagine that gives you a lot of freedom, but I can also imagine that it also gives you too much room for manoeuvre. Of what can we best do here?

Eva: Yes definitely, yes you see that quite a lot now in projects where there are so many possibilities and also so many expectations and objectives to concretely determine which measures are the most effective? Is it necessary to be able to weigh up those measures? That is still quite complex, because often things on those themes cannot be expressed very well in figures and we make an attempt to translate them into measurable indicators to be able to weigh them up against each other. To see how we can make the most impact and create the most value for the project.

Pieter-Bas: Indeed, we can indeed knock it flat like that because actually your role in area development is also to ensure that people can actually live there comfortably and that everything is just fine in terms of sustainability and air quality and so on.

Eva: Yes and resistant to the future.

Pieter-Bas: We are of course facing a huge housing task in the Netherlands. How do you see this kind of data, that whole database getting bigger and bigger, we can measure more and more things, how do you see its role in solving that enormous housing task?

Eva: The task we all face now is the housing task. To meet the huge demand for housing, it has been calculated that around 75,000 houses need to be built per year. And if we continue the way we are working now, we won't achieve that, so I think digital tools and data can help us by working more efficiently and collaborating with each other more efficiently to just get those projects off the ground faster.

Pieter-Bas: That efficiency improvements are actually being made. How did you actually end up at Witteveen+Bos? You indicated that you did an internship, but how did you get that internship?

Eva: I came into contact with Witteveen+Bos through a former fellow student of mine. In the Smart and Healthy cities group. I was very interested in what this group does in terms of digitalisation within urban projects. And then I enjoyed my internship and then also started working in the area development department.

Pieter-Bas: During your studies, were you already thinking: am I going to work at an engineering firm, or how?

Eva: No, not necessarily that because I don't have a background in civil engineering that wasn't the first thing I thought of. So I do have a background in geodata, but I already knew that just working as a GIS expert was not for me, so I was really looking for a workplace where I could use and deploy that knowledge.

Pieter-Bas: A multidisciplinary environment.

Eva: Yes exactly, not necessarily only as a GIS expert, but more where projects are approached integrally and my role would also be more integral. That's what I really like about my work now, that I might have a role as a GIS expert in one project, but not in another.

Pieter-Bas: So one time you're really nerding out behind your laptop.

Eva: Yes, exactly, and I like that a lot from time to time, but I don't have to do it all week, and precisely because of this background I can also identify opportunities in projects where digital tools or the use of geodata may not necessarily have been considered initially. That sometimes it does get off the ground after all.

Pieter-Bas: And do you feel that the organisation within Witteveen+Bos is open to these kinds of innovations or do you notice that there are actually still some barriers to overcome?

Eva: Yes, I think that as an organisation we are definitely open to it. We have also been busy developing tools and digital resources. Also always experienced that we get a lot of space for it. Of course, the question is always whether the customer wants it, whether the market is ready for it. I think so more and more. What we sometimes experience ourselves is that you think you are developing something the market is completely ready for or what the market really wants. But in the end the market often just works the way it has always worked. So that is sometimes a challenge.

Pieter-Bas: So very policy-driven, and you also notice this with the development of this kind of digital tooling...The pitfall I have often run into is that because the client pays, you are quite inclined to make a tool fit for that one client. Which doesn't really help scalability. So then you have a very nice tool for that customer and the asks the next municipality for a similar thing, then you think, oh yes, I can almost start all over again.

Eva: Yes, that is something we do run into. Witteveen+Bos is of course a big company. Sometimes the same questions arise in several projects, but you don't know about them from each other. It is important to roll out your ideas and the things you develop company-wide. I also think we should really take an active role in convincing the client of the things we develop.

Pieter-Bas: How should I picture this? Are customers really asking for this or are you more concerned with acquisition, making sure it comes to the customers' attention?

Eva: Perhaps mainly the latter for now. At least in the projects I work in. Those are the housing projects or redevelopment projects. The question is always a design or advice for the layout of the public space, for example. And that is then not necessarily a digital tool. Especially for large projects, we then often deploy a collaboration platform now. That is a kind of GIS platform that helps us work more efficiently, so also from the idea that we already have the idea that we work more efficiently because of this. We also increasingly succeed in convincing clients of its added value. But often it is then still a step to actually work digitally, or to use a tool you may not yet be familiar with.

Pieter-Bas: Should I imagine that those are tools that we actually use ourselves and mainly present the results to the client? Or does the client also use them themselves?

Eva: Traditionally more the former. Often the results of our projects are designs and those are, for example, CAD designs and we deliver that, for example, in CAD, but also as a pdf, a picture. But for our own convenience, we make that so that we can immediately load that into a digital environment and the other results from projects like the design of sewers, but also the design of greenery. These are often separate designs. And we actually see the added value of opening all that up in a digital place where you can superimpose those layers and see what the interfaces, bottlenecks and potential opportunities are.

Pieter-Bas: Coming together with all the disciplines. And do you see your current role within Witteveen+Bos, I don't know if you can say anything about it, in the next 5 to 10 years, do you already have an idea where that will develop?

Eva: I'm actually still a starter in my career, so I'm really still figuring out what I like about the different kinds of projects, but also my role in projects. What I get most energy from is connecting different disciplines, but also connecting stakeholders, informing stakeholders also involving stakeholders. And I'm still learning a lot about all the different kinds of disciplines that I knew quite little about before that now I know more and more a little bit about many different kinds of things, but then because of that I can see through where there are common ground.

Pieter-Bas: Yes, that you really grow in that role and become an overall specialist.

Eva: I also want to develop myself in that integrated role. I am now also taking on the role of project manager in a number of projects. That is a role that appeals to me.

Pieter-Bas: Exciting and fun, Eva I want to thank you very much for your contribution today. Nice of you to be there. And dear listeners, until next time.

Outro: Nice that you listened to The Digital Engineer. Keep an eye on our channel for more episodes. This was a podcast by Witteveen+Bos.