Sensat, British Land and their delivery partners create a “digital twin” in major step towards Canada Water Masterplan

Thread of information provides the missing link for overarching site accessibility, planning and coordination for the length of the scheme.

Sensat has mapped and brought together all past, present and future data of Canada Water’s 53-acre site in one digital replica, working with partners British Land, a UK property development and investment company, and Amodal, information management firm for the built environment. Providing an up-to-date visual resource, Sensat has ensured British Land and their delivery partners to better understand the site and its constraints to expedite options appraisal process, feasibility reporting, and risk evaluations.

Embarking on a £4billion project to redevelop Canada Water’s 53-acre site, British Land, in partnership with Southwark Council, has been developing a new town centre for Southwark and London communities that complements the local area, making an active, positive, long-term contribution to local life. As part of the Canada Water Masterplan, British Land selected Amodal and Sensat to provide a complete overview of the entire site, where multiple teams and project stakeholders can easily visualise site conditions without having to be on site, supporting project decision-making, contingency planning, and frictionless collaboration.

David Walters, programme director at British Land, commented: “The ability to both accurately scan the site and confidently pull together lots of disparated data into one single platform, is amazingly powerful. The speed of iteration helps for quicker options appraisal, more efficient handover processes, and better clash detection to reduce contingency costs. It’s been an invaluable resource when thinking through phasing.

“Adopting a Common Visualisation Environment, such as Sensat’s, enhances our visualisation capability and has proven instrumental when it comes to data validation. By scanning the site using drones, and displaying this highly-accurate data in Sensat’s platform, we have been able to establish disparities between the actual locations of assets and their previously documented locations. Spotting problems early, ahead of the design phase, means we can significantly reduce the level of risk contingency costs, which could easily be into millions.”