Digital Twin Apartment Housing: Build To Rent Pilot Study A

<p dir="ltr">Digital twin (DT) technologies—dynamic digital replicas of physical assets—are gaining traction globally as part of the transition to Industry 4.0. Yet the acceleration of digital twin discourse has far outpaced critical understanding of how these technologies are being designed and used. Much existing work remains techno-centric, driven by engineering, computer-science and industry framings that treat digital twins as purely technical systems. In the housing sector, this oversight is stark. Despite bold claims about productivity and sustainability gains, no systematic empirical research examines how digital twins are reconfiguring housing delivery, investment and management, nor its impacts, including for households. </p><p dir="ltr">This pilot study begins to address that gap by developing a socio-technical approach to digital twin adoption in Australia’s Build to rent<b> </b>(BTR) housing sector. A socio-technical perspective understands digital twins not as neutral digital infrastructures but as governance instruments. Technical accounts of digital twin typically define the physical-digital link in purely technical terms: as a matter of data flow, privileging fidelity and efficiency. Yet this relationship is profoundly social, shaped by human values, institutional incentives and power relations that determine what is modelled, measured and acted upon. Drawing on platform urbanism scholarship, this study understands digitalisation processes as techno-political endeavours of value creation and extraction, with uncertain consequences. Here, digital twins are conceptualised as rule-based platforms embedded in material and institutional settings that mobilise data to produce and extract value. Associated data practices are treated as context-contingent negotiations in which <i>expertise</i> is mobilised to produce value, govern access, and sustain accumulation. Together with digital twin best practice <i>Gemini Principles</i> (Bolton et al 2019) and <i>ANZLIC’s (2019) Principles for Spatially Enabled Digital Twins</i>, these concepts provide the foundation for examining digital twins as value-laden systems in which data practices <i>enable</i> new forms of coordination, prediction and control in housing delivery and management, while <i>constraining</i> alternative ways of knowing, valuing and governing the home. It is an approach that can expose the social and political stakes of digitalisation: how housing’s material and institutional futures are being redefined through data-driven logics of optimisation and value creation.</p><p dir="ltr">BTR provides an ideal case site: its long-term asset ownership, lifecycle performance focus, and data-rich management practices make it a leading testbed for digital innovation. Building on the author’s Australian Research Council DECRA project and drawing on new qualitative data with BTR developers, operators and technology consultants, the study explores how expertise, organisational priorities and institutional norms shape the design, adoption and perceived value of digital twins. While detailed findings will be presented in Part B (forthcoming), Part A delivers a robust socio-technical framework and methodology to guide future digital twin housing research<b> </b>and policy. It details digital twins’ technical lineage, deployment frameworks and conceptual tensions and provides a curated set of resources to contextualise digital twin adoption. This establishes the theoretical, analytical and practice foundations for understanding how these technologies are reshaping housing delivery and governance in this growing housing submarket.</p><p dir="ltr">This pilot makes the case for expanded socio-technical inquiry into digital twin housing. Technical innovation alone cannot deliver the public good outcomes now promised. Understanding the socio-technical dynamics behind digital twin systems is essential. Embedding socio-technical analysis into design, governance and evaluation can help de-risk implementation: it can help guard against ‘optimisations’ centred on narrow commercial metrics, and it can help align digital innovation with public-interest goals of affordability, liveability, and decarbonisation. This study provides a foundation for a sector-specific digital maturation roadmap that advances beyond Industry 4.0’s tech-centric paradigm toward an Industry 5.0<b> </b>model grounded in human-centred, ethical and socially responsible technological innovation. By establishing the conceptual framework and methodological foundations for this analysis, the pilot lays the groundwork for a larger research program and future policy collaborations aimed at shaping a fairer, more sustainable digital future for housing.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p>