Modular construction – notes
November 17th, 2016
This isn’t an article, it’s two links and a few thoughts. I found a KPMG paper today on modular construction and a linked one from Design for Homes.
Smart construction report 2016 – KPMG
Modular Steel – Design for Homes
Brief references to the whole subject would be the (unintended) extended life of World War II prefabs, designed for ten years some of which have lasted sixty years. The present and ongoing housing crisis. The shortage of skilled tradespeople in the construction industry, the need for a lot of housing, quickly, all over the UK.
In some minds prefabricated housing is still hampered by memories of Ronan Point in 1968 but that was an entirely different house of cards, the system was used way above its intended height and the bolts were left out or not properly connected.
A quality architectural image was critical to the client in order to overcome the possible utilitarian perceptions often associated with system-build housing. – Murray Grove
Modular construction is back on the agenda as the way forward and not before time, in my opinion.
A keen advocate of industrialised building methods in the 1960s was A. W. Cleeve Barr an architect who wrote a number of books and appears in the film The Great British Housing Disaster, albeit as a scapegoat for an industry that would have lasted longer had the panels in the blocks been properly put up at that time.
However, the attempt to blame him alone for lack of supervision on site is unwarranted and in the same league as the defamation of Nicholas Taylor in the Deptford programme in the Secret History of our Streets series.
Continuing the Deptford theme, the architectural writer Owen Hatherley once lived above a chip shop in Deptford High St and has written this excellent article about student housing built using modular systems, here:-
The high end is represented by the developers Nido, as at their shiny TP Bennett-designed skyscraper in Spitalfields, a smaller part of the City of London’s “cluster”; the low-end is supplied by Unite, enthusiastic system-builders who have mauled the skylines of the north with high-density, high-security, low-quality tower complexes like Sky Plaza in Leeds and Grand Central in Liverpool.
Unite are mentioned in the Design for Homes paper linked above as manufacturers of modules for use in student housing.
Unite is a design, build, finance and operate company which concentrates in the health
and educational sectors. Unite has developed, together with Corus Framing, a modular study bedroom using light steel panels and floor joists from the Surebuild system. Their niche market is in student residences and accommodation for health and other key workers, particularly in inner-city locations.