As Building celebrates its 175-year anniversary, we are looking ahead to the future of the built environment; exploring future challenges and substantial changes as the sector evolves. 

Over the next 25 years new technology will overturn what has gone before, and the reality is that we are already in the middle of what many call the fourth industrial revolution. Veterans of the industry have seen change on an unprecedented scale, and it is remarkable just how strikingly working practices have changed since their 1980s, 1990s and even 2000s counterparts. Here, we ask several professionals about previous everyday tasks that are now archaic, obsolete or redundant, thanks to those technological advances. 

1. The art of folding paper

In order to replicate architect and engineer drawings, blueprints were printed using a photosensitive chemical solution and dyeline paper, with ammonia solution used to develop the print. We no longer need to inhale dangerous levels of ammonia to get drawings out to clients, largely thanks to CAD drawings and, more recently, 3D modelling software. 

“Even in the 1980s we used to go out for a leisurely lunch to the local Camden Town Greek on Fridays, get back to the office to print the week’s work and fold by hand the dyeline prints, stinking of ammonia, and then have to cycle to the all-night post-office by Trafalgar Square as the local office had shut.” Robin Nicholson, Cullinan Studio

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