1. ANALYSIS
P
lagued by sleepless nights over the
government’s promise to build one million
homes by 2020, Brandon Lewis, the
housing minister, is urging developers
to use modern methods of construction (MMCs) to
speed things along.
However, a lack of prefab factories – critical for the
construction of the modular units – could hold back
plans to crank out more homes at the rate needed.
To blossom, housebuilders need to adopt off-site
methods at scale. But funding sheds and robotics to
enable this is highly capital intensive and without
demand these facilities will simply not stack up.
“You’ve got to win the confidence of the banks and
investors who need to feel that this isn’t laden with
risk,” says Ray Theakston, construction director at
Essential Living.
“Once a few have been built, confidence will grow
and modular construction will become the rule
rather than an exception.”
To build at scale, developers need consolidated
production lines that can churn out entire
apartments ready to go on site. Slotting them in like
Meccano offers a wealth of benefits, not least the
time spent on site.
But this requires considerable upfront investment.
“The real game-changer is the disruptive intervention
from institutional investors and local authority funds
into direct lending to housing programmes that will
involve creating completely new factories to build
homes,” says Mark Cleverly, partner at Arcadis.
Big commitment
Near Leeds, Legal & General (L&G) is planning to
pump £55m into Europe’s largest off-site facility. As
encouraging as this is, an assembly line churning out
3,000 homes a year will only see off a fraction of
Britain’s housing need.
But L&G’s plans do offer a workable prototype for
the type of model that would need to be replicated
across the country to genuinely fulfil ambitious
housing targets.
James Lidgate, L&G’s head of residential, is upbeat
about the potential to create economies of scale
Modular construction has been heralded as the cure-all for everything
from housing refugees to making homes greener. Politicians have
now jumped on the bandwagon. But can it live up to the hype?
and remove many issues faced on site, for instance
due to interaction between certain trades. “You can
remove that uncertainty and interaction in a factory
environment,” he says.
Ambitious projects around the world offer a glimpse
of what Britain’s construction future could look like.
In Singapore, a subsidiary of Bouygues is building
two 40-storey modular apartment blocks based on a
reinforced concrete structure.
In Dubai, a 3D printer two storeys tall was
used to create a 2,700 sq ft office using a mix of
concrete, fibre-reinforced plastic and glass-fibre-
reinforced gypsum.
And in Sweden, Lindbäcks has gone a step further
with fully automated production lines that can
incorporate a mix of materials to build highly complex
modifiable units for student and senior living.
UK conditions
However, some of these innovations may not
be appropriate for the UK, and especially
London, where much of Britain’s housing need is
concentrated. 3D printing, for example, does not
lend itself to inner-city development.
“Factors such as location and planning
requirements come into play on brownfield sites
in particular, so to accommodate the necessary
criteria as well as producing homes at volume, any
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3D-capable facilities will need to take a flexible
approach,” says Cliff Davey, estimating director at
McLaren Construction.
“If everything is pre-planned properly and designed
to meet all of these requirements as well as lifespan
expectations, the construction would certainly
be quicker while meeting the need for a housing
demand that is more than double the current output.”
Regardless of whatever high-tech geekery we
conjure up to build apartments, we’ll still need boots
on the ground to assemble them.
“There will be less requirement for skilled labour
as construction evolves towards on-site assembly.
But only if projects are designed this way from the
outset,” says Arcadis’s Cleverly. “Off-site manufacture
only represents 7% of construction output – in fact,
the industry itself is reporting its own skills shortage.”
Over the long run, MMCs could transform the skills
base needed by spreading the load across a broader
array of functions. “A modern, capacity-enhanced
industry will require both traditional trade skills
as well as new forms of multi-skilled, digitally
enabled manufacturing and assembly skills,”
says Mark Farmer, director at Cast Consultancy.
If investors see demand increasing, the
government skills review being led by Farmer
may need to look at incorporating high-tech
apprenticeships focusing on assembly.
While it’s clear that off-site manufacture has the
potential to contribute heavily to Britain’s housing
supply, the main hurdles will be making full use of
existing factories and convincing lenders around risk.
Shifting investors towards homes that roll off
a production line complete with a kitchen and
bathroom shouldn’t be difficult. And if the market’s
stars align, we may soon see a day where we can
have customisable, high-quality homes within days.
Maybe then the housing target will cause Lewis and
his colleagues fewer sleepless nights. 9
Factors such as
location and planning
come into play on
brownfield sites
Modular
methods
could boost
housebuilding
numbers