Blockchain has the potential to transform architecture in several ways: 1. It can secure creative property rights for designers and architects by tokenizing designs on the blockchain to track ownership and provenance. 2. Smart contracts can integrate blockchain into the contract administration process for architectural projects to enable fair and timely payments, reduce disputes, and automate project workflows. 3. Blockchains can power intelligent supply chains for architectural production by recording transactions and automating processes using smart contracts. This could transform how architecture is practiced and buildings are produced.

1. Blockchain and its
future application in
architecture
Augustine Ong Wing

2. PRE-BLOCKCHAIN ERA
STONE
MONEY IN THE
PACIFIC

3. Stone Money
in a Pacific
Island
(13th century)
• The Pacific Island of Yap is known for its stone
money, known as Rai. Rai stones are large
doughnut-shaped, carved disks of calcite, up to 12
feet in diameter.

4. Stone Money
• To quarry the stones, Yapese adventurershad to sail
to distantislandsand deal with localinhabitants
who were sometimes hostile.
• Once quarried, the disks had to be transported back
to Yap on rafts towed behind sail-drivencanoes. The
scarcity of the disks, and the effort and peril
required to get them, made them valuableto the
Yapese.

5. Scarcity and 'Fixed'
Supply
• Their size and weight (the largest ones require 20
adult men to carry) make them very difficult to
move around.
• In 1874, an enterprising Irish American sea captain
named David O'Keefe hit upon the idea of
employing the Yapese to import more "money" in
the form of shiploadsof large stones, also from
Palau. O'Keefe then traded these stones with the
Yapese for other commodities such as sea
cucumbers and copra.

7. Decentralised
Stone Ledgers
• Historicallythe Yapese valued the
disks because the materiallooks
like quartz, and these were the
shiniest objects available.
• As no more disks are being
produced or imported, this money
supply is fixed.The islandersknow
who owns which piece but do not
necessarily move them when
ownership changes.

8. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
BITCOIN: THE FIRST
BLOCKCHAIN

9. Decentralised
Stone Ledgers
• The stones became legal tender
and were even mandatory for the
payment and settlement of large
transactions. Expeditionsto obtain
Rai and regulationof their use was
controlledby localChieftains.
• Although todaythe United States
dollar is the currency used for
everyday transactionsin Yap, the
stone disks are still used for more
traditional orceremonial
exchange.

10. Decentralised
Ledgers - Bitcoin
•
An electronic coin is defined as a
chain of digital signatures, where
the transfer of coins – or fractions
thereof – is handledby digitally
signing a hash of the previous
transactionalong with the
cryptographic publickey of the
next owner.

12. Bitcoin
Whitepaper
(2008)
- Satoshi
Nakamoto

13. How it solves the
double spending
problem
• Historically,the problem that
mainly occurred in electronic
payment systems is double
spending, in which a single
piece of currency could be
spent multipletimes when
proper mechanisms were not
in place. Bitcoin addresses
this through its timestamp
based chronological ledgerof
transactions.

14. How a blockchain functions in principle

15. Bitcoin
Whitepaper
(2008)
- Satoshi
Nakamoto

16. SMART CONTRACTS
DECENTRALISATION
TRUST(LESS)
ADVANTAGES OF
BLOCKCHAINS

17. Challenges with Current Paradigm

18. How Blockchain Solves This

20. Blockchain’s fundemental benefits lies in its:
Ability to create trust in trustless environments;
Security mechanisms for the transfer of value;
Efficiency in streamlining business processes, particularly between
different entities; and
Enhanced auditability and its transparency.

21. Blockchain key capabilities

22. 01
Democratizing Creativity in
Physical and Virtual Space
BLOCKCHAIN
ENABLED
DESIGN

23. 01 - Creative Property
Tokens
02 - Decentralised Authorship
03 - Add value by slowly
reversing the trend of popular
designs becoming
'free' to copy in the age of the
internet

24. Concept of property rights in the digital age...

25. ?

26. Concerns about Intellectual Property Issues in 3D printing and the 'free' to copy/steal designs
How can blockchain add valueby reversing this negative trend for designers and architects?

27. Secured by
blockchain

28. Securing creative
property rights
• At a more granular level, each
bitmark consists of a chain of
transfer records that weaves in
and out of different blocksof
transactionsto create its
provenance.The authenticityof
each property’sprovenanceis
maintainedby continuously
verifying this chain of owner
signatures.
• This Internetnativeownership
registry allowsthe Bitmark system
to satisfy all the functional
requirementsof conventional
property systems in a single public
data resource:

29. Blockchain art -
The tokenisation
of creative work
• Add value by slowly reversing
the trend of designs becoming
merely
'free' to copy in the age of the
internet
• Adding creative value to
authors
• What is the value of an
unrealised design in
architecture?
• When will the tokenisation of
'architecture' begins?

30. The blockchain ecosystem map
Secure Creative
Property Rights
By Blockchain
Designers and
Architects
New Asset
Value Creation
Algorithm
Decentralised
Markets

31. Post-blockchain era
Democratizing
Virtual Space- (Decentraland- 2017)
• Thousandsof investors, artists, developers,
and community leaders made the Genesis
City auctionthe largest sale of virtualland in
history. Next, Decentraland'sIron Age
begins with the blockchaindeployment of
Genesis City.

35. 02
'Smart' Contracts +
Procurement
BLOCKCHAIN
ENABLED
PRACTICE

36. 01 – Smart Contract Integration
02 - Intelligent Supply Chains
03 - Decentralised Marketplaces

37. How will Blockchain transform Architectural Practices?
• The primary
advantages of blockchain
technologies for
architecture might be
within the realm of the
contract.
• This essentially opens
up new models for both
sides of the designer-
client relationship. In
general, architecture
rests on rather
outmoded standards for
this relationship.

38. Disintermediation of all Markets including Architecture

39. Transforming the Business and Production of Architecture

40. Various Stages of Producing Architecture (Inception to Completion)

41. Integrating Blockchain into the Contract Administration

42. Projected Project Lifecycle Benefits through Smart Contract Setup
Inception
Completion
and handover
Encapsulation
of smartcontract parameters
Intoproject.
Rules regardingdeliverables andpayment
release schedules throughbuiltinto
procurementof architecture.
Manual Execution
of setup
Automated
Execution of setup
* Fair, timely payments
released by client as per
deliverables by all consultants
and contractors
Late Payments.
Higher Dispute
ResolutionCosts

43. Physical + Digital Flows in the intelligent supply chain

44. Blockchain Record and Smart Contracts in the intelligentsupply chain

47. 03
Towards 'Smart Cities' and
'Smart Decentralisation'
BLOCKCHAIN
ENABLED
ECOSYSTEMS

48. 01 – Accelerating the
deployment of the
Internet of Things
02 - Enabling Smart Cities
03 - Adaptive Ecosystems

52. Smart CITIES
VALUE LAYER
NETWORK LAYER

55. in the conceptionof next generationof
Spaces + Buildings + Cities
IndustrialAge The BlockchainAgeDigital Age