By Melissa Marsh and Howard Brown - 29th October, 2025
As the built environment continues to evolve in the digital age, the fusion of human-centric design and advanced technology is shaping how we plan, operate, and optimize the spaces where we live, learn, and work. At Tradeline, Melissa Marsh of PLASTARC and Howard Brown of DPR Construction delivered an engaging and forward-thinking presentation that explored the transformative role of digital twins—a sophisticated, data-driven mirror of a building or campus—offering real-world perspectives, practical examples, and actionable insights for industry leaders.
Setting the Stage: Why Digital Twins, and Why Now?
Melissa Marsh opened the session by inviting the audience to consider their own comfort with technological change. Those who felt at ease with “pencil and paper and Excel spreadsheets,” she joked, might find the topic of digital twins intimidating—but for those excited by digital progress, it represents boundless opportunity. Her organization, PLASTARC, brings together social research and people analytics with the built environment, working to ensure that buildings are not just smart, but also supportive of the people who use them. Howard Brown introduced DPR Construction’s commitment to holistic construction and operation, underlining the importance of data utilization across the entire building lifecycle.
Understanding Digital Twins: From Drawings to Dynamic Experience
As Melissa explained, a digital twin is much more than a virtual replica. Building on Stewart Brand’s concept of layered architecture, she described how digital twins integrate physical elements, user data, and real-time feedback, transforming static spaces into responsive, evolving environments. “Buildings are evolving from drawings and geometry to interconnected social systems,” she asserted, emphasizing the growing expectation that users manage their experience through digital platforms.
Howard provided a clear technical perspective, noting that DPR Construction specializes in leveraging design and operational data—BIM and GIS—to serve long-term stakeholder needs, from higher education to advanced technology projects. Early involvement and adaptability are vital, he shared, allowing expertise to shape outcomes right from the design phase through to operation and maintenance.
Case Study: San Francisco International Airport—A Living Digital Ecosystem
One of the presentation’s stand-out moments was Howard’s deep dive into the San Francisco International Airport project. More than just a technical challenge, the airport’s digital twin encompassed a “city within a city,” with 26 departments, 40 project teams, and an ecosystem of diverse stakeholder needs. By integrating building information modeling (BIM) with geographic information systems (GIS), DPR created a unified “source of truth” that enables everyone from facility managers to senior executives to access reliable, up-to-date information for smart decision-making.
This digital twin offers next-level functionality: mapping and tracking assets in real time, linking space usage data to lease management, monitoring energy and infrastructure, and enabling agile responses to operational challenges—such as wait times at TSA checkpoints. Crucially, Howard underscored that the lion’s share of the work was organizational and process-driven, not just technological, highlighting the necessity of collaboration and buy-in at every stage.
The Power of Feedback Loops and User Experience
A central message of the talk was the importance of designing feedback loops—both at the micro and macro scale. Digital twins are not just repositories of data but must actively connect user experiences to operational decisions, enabling true post-occupancy evaluation and ongoing optimization. Examples such as app-based navigation in office buildings, QR code security, and maintenance workflows illuminated how digital twins make daily interactions seamless for both users and managers.
Q&A: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Road Ahead
In the lively Q&A session, audience members asked about everything from scaling digital twins in existing portfolios to the practical challenges of data management, cost, and sustainability. Melissa and Howard addressed the balance between rich, operationally useful data and resource efficiency, advocating for “minimum viable models” that can grow in fidelity over time as needs and projects evolve. The discussion closed with encouragement for standardization, future-readiness, and ongoing cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Conclusion
In their Tradeline presentation, Melissa Marsh and Howard Brown captured both the promise and the pragmatism of digital twins. Their message was clear: the future of the built environment is not just about smart buildings, but about smarter, more sustainable interactions between people and the spaces they inhabit. Digital twins, when shaped by purposeful design and robust collaboration, offer a pathway to more resilient, adaptable, and user-centered places for all.
