S1E1: System Thinking with Mark Enzer

In this inaugural episode of How We Build…, host Nevena Vajdic sits down with Mark Enzer, strategic advisor at Mott MacDonald and visiting professor at both Cambridge and Imperial College London, to explore the transformative power of systems thinking in civil engineering and the built environment.Mark shares insights from his extensive experience leading the National Digital Twin Programme and championing digitalization, collaborative delivery, and the circular economy. Together, they unpack what it means to shift from a project-based mindset to a systems-based approach, one that prioritizes outcomes over outputs and sees the built environment as a complex, interconnected system.Mark Enzer is the Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in the digitalisation of the built environment at the University of Cambridge, and he is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London.  As Strategic Advisor at Mott MacDonald, Mark provides advice to key clients on digitalisation and broader industry transformation. Previously, Mark was the CTO of Mott MacDonald and the Director of the Centre for Digital Built Britain, where he was the Head of the National Digital Twinprogramme.  Mark is a keen champion of outcomes-focusedsystems-thinking, collaborative delivery models, digitalisation, connected digital twins and the circular economy in the built environment.  This episode was originally recorded in June 2025.Music: "C-Funk" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License