Season 1

Terraforming the Real World

Season 1 examines how the physical world is being actively re-engineered — across energy, compute, materials, food, cities, and capital — and where current approaches are structurally misaligned with reality.

The focus is not innovation theatre, but constraint: what limits systems, what breaks at scale, and what trade-offs are being ignored.

Season 1 establishes the physical grammar of the future — the hard constraints that shape what can be built before politics, ideology, or preference enter the room.

Season 1 is designed to be listened to in sequence.

  • Core question

    Why do our biggest ambitions — AI, climate transition, housing, industrial renewal — keep failing when they meet the real world?
    And what happens when energy, land, materials, food, compute, and capital are treated not as sectors, but as one coupled physical system?

    Key threads

    • The collapse of “weightless” economic narratives into physical constraints
    • Energy, land, materials, food, and compute as a single integrated system
    • Why land and infrastructure quietly determine what can scale — and what cannot
    • The return of permanence, friction, and time as dominant forces

    Real estate lens

    Real estate as the balance sheet of civilisation — where abstract ambitions are forced to reconcile with physics, geography, and consent.

    Land and buildings are not passive backdrops.
    They are constraint containers where power, risk, and responsibility accumulate.

    Series structure

    Season 1 unfolds in three phases:

    • Phase 1 — The Physics of Power
    Hard constraints that do not negotiate

    • Phase 2 — Systems Collision
    Where digital ambition meets physical reality

    • Phase 3 — The Governance of Atoms
    Who decides what happens when constraints bite

    Series tie-back

    This season establishes the core premise of Building Our Future:
    real estate is not a sector — it is the spatial expression of civilisation-scale systems.

    Everything else flows from that.

PHASE 1 — THE PHYSICS OF POWER

Where energy, materials, and land impose hard constraints on what can be built.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    The world is re-encountering hard physical constraints — energy, materials, land, and time — and real estate is where those constraints collide.

    Key threads

    • Why “weightless” digital narratives collapse back into physical systems

    • Energy, materials, food, and compute as co-dependent, not separate transitions

    • Why long-duration assets matter again in a volatile world

    Real estate lens

    Land and buildings as constraint containers, not passive backdrops.

    Series tie-back

    This episode establishes the grammar of the season: real estate is not a sector — it is the spatial expression of civilisation-scale systems.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    Energy availability, not planning policy, is increasingly the true determinant of land value.

    Key threads

    • Why power scarcity re-prices geography

    • Grid access vs generation — and why they are not the same

    • The myth of “energy abundance” in land-use decisions

    Real estate lens

    Grid adjacency as the new zoning.

    Series tie-back

    Energy is the first force that re-terraforms land — everything else is downstream.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    Some infrastructure is too large, too slow, and too politically charged to avoid land-use conflict.

    Key threads

    • SMRs and “energy parks” as spatial propositions

    • Consent, exclusion zones, and host-community economics

    • Why nationally significant infrastructure exposes planning limits

    Real estate lens

    Nuclear as a land and consent problem, not an energy debate.

    Series tie-back

    Terraforming requires assets that permanently reshape land — and force political choices.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    Technical solutions often fail not because the engineering is wrong, but because the social and legal friction is rational, organised, and powerful.

    Key threads > • Why "NIMBYism" is a lazy label for complex local risk management

    • The legal levers that stop "Serious Infrastructure" in its tracks

    • Why a 100-year project often lacks a 100-year community benefit

    Real estate lens

    Consent as a non-negotiable planning constraint, not a PR hurdle.

    Series tie-back

    Season 1 shows what must be built; this episode reveals why it often isn't.

PHASE 2 — SYSTEMS COLLISION

Where institutions decide which constraints are overridden — and which futures are blocked.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    AI and compute are physical infrastructure, with extreme spatial and energy demands.

    Key threads

    • Data centres as the new ports or refineries

    • Power density, cooling, and site selection

    • Why “cloud” is a misleading metaphor

    Real estate lens

    Compute-grade land as a new asset class.

    Series tie-back

    The digital future still consumes land, steel, and electrons — at scale.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    The electricity network is quietly becoming the hidden planner of development.

    Key threads

    • Grid queues and stranded land

    • Why “shovel-ready” often means “power-blind”

    • The mismatch between local plans and national infrastructure

    Real estate lens

    Land without power is not development land — it is theoretical land.

    Series tie-back

    Terraforming fails when invisible systems are not surfaced.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    Buildings are fundamentally chemical and material systems, not just designs.

    Key threads

    • Why materials breakthroughs stall at scale

    • Cement, steel, and membranes as carbon and cost drivers

    • Retrofit vs rebuild once material constraints bite

    Real estate lens

    Buildings as material stockpiles with long lifespans.

    Series tie-back

    Terraforming is constrained by chemistry, not imagination.

PHASE 3 — THE GOVERNANCE OF ATOMS

Where systems collide, trade-offs become explicit, and resilience replaces efficiency.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    Innovation repeatedly fails at the point where it needs land, utilities, and finance.

    Key threads

    • The lab → pilot → factory → site gap

    • Planning and power as scaling bottlenecks

    • Why Britain lacks mid-scale industrial real estate

    Real estate lens

    The missing asset class between science parks and sheds.

    Series tie-back

    Terraforming requires spatial pathways for ideas to become infrastructure.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    Land is being pulled in three directions — food, energy, and nature — and cannot optimise for all.

    Key threads

    • Land-use efficiency across food systems

    • Energy intensity vs yield narratives

    • The limits of vertical and controlled-environment agriculture

    Real estate lens

    Land as biological and energy infrastructure, not just acreage.

    Series tie-back

    Terraforming forces trade-offs — food systems make them unavoidable.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    Cities increasingly succeed or fail based on their ability to host science and discovery.

    Key threads

    • Why labs break office economics

    • Power, vibration, ventilation, and clustering

    • The real meaning of “innovation districts”

    Real estate lens

    Laboratory real estate as urban infrastructure.

    Series tie-back

    Terraforming concentrates in cities — but only those built for it.

  • Core question

    What have we actually established so far — and why does that make the next set of conversations unavoidable rather than optional?

    Key ideas

    • Phases 1 and 2 describe the system, not opinions
    • Energy, land, materials, and compute act as hard constraints, not policy choices
    • System collisions are not failures of ambition, but of mismatch between timelines and physics
    • Once constraints collide, outcomes are shaped by decisions, not optimisation

    Series tie-back

    Everything up to this point explains how the physical system works.
    Phase 3 is about how that system is steered — who allocates land, energy, capital, and risk when trade-offs can no longer be avoided.

    This reflection re-anchors the season before moving from description to consequence.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    Cities are long-duration assets shaped by ownership, stewardship, and political choice.

    Key threads

    • Density vs liveability trade-offs

    • Masterplanning limits vs organic growth

    • Who benefits — and who is displaced

    Real estate lens

    Urban land as a social and economic allocation mechanism.

    Series tie-back

    Terraforming cities without clarity of purpose leads to fracture.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    Capital allocation determines what gets built — and what does not — over decades.

    Key threads

    • Infrastructure vs housing vs specialist real estate

    • Political risk and duration

    • What capital is quietly walking away from

    Real estate lens

    Ownership structures as future-shaping decisions.

    Series tie-back

    The future is allocated by capital, not imagined by architects. If you don't control the capital layer, you don't control the terraforming.

SYNTHESIS — TERRAFORMING THE REAL WORLD

Where broken systems are repurposed — without the luxury of starting again.

  • Guest: TBC

    Core question

    What breaks — and what we mis-build — if today’s models are scaled tenfold.

    Key threads

    • Where the system fails first

    • Which land uses win and lose

    • What future developers will regret

    Real estate lens

    Real estate as the final integrator of all system pressures.

    Series close

    Terraforming the real world means moving beyond 'prop-tech' and 'innovation' talk to the brutal reality of industrial delivery and sovereign-scale trade-offs.

Season 1 shows what must be built. Season 2 asks who gets to decide.