Member - Moduloop

In commercial real estate, the building owner is invariably a "financial" organisation (bank, insurance company, institutional pension fund, etc.), which considers real estate as one of a number of investment vehicles. They generally don’t have internal technical teams dedicated to space development and fitting out. Currently, the building owner provides the tenant with a lease for office space without any fitout work. Even though it is partially funded by the owner, in the form of a rent-free incentive, the cost and process of the fitting out work is the responsibility of the tenant. At the end of the lease, as set out in the dilapidations agreement, the tenant must reinstate the space back to its original condition and bear the corresponding cost, effectively demolishing what has been built, irrespective of its condition and potential continued life. With very few exceptions, this wasteful exercise happens in every office space, in every city around the world generating millions of tonnes of unnecessary landfill and sacrificing the inherent value invested in the initial office creation. In addition to creating untenable levels of waste, much of which can’t be recycled due to the composite nature of the assembly (partitions are made up from plasterboard, timber and steel which can’t be easily separated), the office occupancy process then requires the next tenant to provide new materials and components to be installed in the same space performing an identical function. Whilst adaptations between tenancies will need to be made to meet the needs of the new tenant, the nature of office occupancy is changing and becoming less about dedicated fixed spaces and more about loose fit, flexible and easily adapted collaborative components, this is the perfect time to reinvent the model. Over the last 10 years technology has been the main driver of this change. With everyone having access to one or more mobile devices, the employees have been able to break free from the constraints of the workstation and use work settings which are better able to support the work to be done. Before March 2020, home working was low on the list of alternative working environments within a company’s arsenal of space types. The hierarchy has now changed and many companies are now considering the benefits of home working as a key part of their office occupancy strategy. Many are considering significant reductions to the amount of space required for both new acquisitions and existing occupiers. It is impossible to predict what impact Covid19 initiated home working will have on the office sector but what is needed is an approach which offers speed to market, an flexible arrangement with the landlord, the avoidance of capex investment into a property and furniture and one which minimizes the senseless waste of materials wrapped up in a proposal where all parties benefit from the extended use of the products. The office spaces therefore bear in their DNA their future destruction: at the end of the lease, the tenant to restore the premises in the same condition before he moved in, must demolish the expensive arrangements he had used and which are most of the times far from being at the end of its life cycle (partitions, furniture, specific equipment, etc.). This restoration to original condition generates in addition to the removal of all partitions, the total overhaul of ceilings (false ceilings), lighting equipment, electrical installations, ventilation, heating and ventilation. All demolished or dismantled items end up in landfill. In large cities, tenants move on average every 6 to 8 years, and, during the rental period, they will have reorganized an average of 15% of their rented space each year. We are witnessing a massive destruction of materials and office equipment at each tenant change with the dumping of products prematurely. This doesn’t factor in the waste and rubble resulting from the day to day operational changes Moduloop provides a solution which mitigates the obsolescence inherent in current office spaces. The Moduloop concept is based on a modular design of workspaces from components specially designed and selected for this purpose. This design allows for faster transformation of workspaces by reusing existing equipment and limiting work on all technical installations, generates a very significant reduction in the destruction of value and limits the dumping of materials and equipment.