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Primitive Materials Future Building Offsite Manufacture (OSM) G#16467

Farmer Review 2016 Modernise Or Die Cover

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Primitive Materials Future Building Offsite Manufacture OSM

Primitive Materials Future Building Offsite Manufacture OSM


Modern Methods of Construction Market demand

Autumn Budget 2017

  • £15.3bn of new funding to boost housing delivery
  • £44bn total investment over five years
  • But developer 30% profit demand regulates supply
    • Government financial injections boosts the profits and salaries of directors
    • Does little to help housing crisis
  • Attempts to regulate ‘foreign investment ownership’ and ‘buy to keep empty’
    • Offshore tax havens may get better regulated
    • Dirty money will continue to buy London property
  • UK government will prioritise use of offsite manufacturing (OSM) and other modern methods of construction (MMC) to improve:
    • Cost effectiveness – Productivity – Speed of construction delivery
  • No mention of (and therefore a presumption of expectation):
    • Climate Change (nothing new then)
    • Energy Performance (comply with Building Regulations)
    • Competency of methods and materials (ditto)
    • Skills gap (MMC is not on CITB skills priorities)
    • Brexit exodus
      • 214,000 EU construction workers UK wide
      • 95,000 (1/4 of total) in London alone
  • Mark Farmer, CEO of Cast
    • government-commissioned construction review ‘Modernise or Die’
    • Strong advocate of offsite manufacturing
  • Building on progress made to date, Government Departments will adopt a presumption in favour of offsite construction by 2019 across suitable capital programmes, where it represents best value for money
  • Government Departments:
    • Department for Transport
      • Infrastructure
    • Department of Health
      • Hospitals & Healthcare
    • Department for Education
      • Schools and Universities (Investment on building not education again?)
    • Ministry of Justice
      • Prisons (reduce overcrowding) and Police Stations (empty?)
    • Ministry of Defense
      • Not sure what they are building (probably secret, more nuclear subs)
    • How do MMC and PFI/PPE fit together?
      • Results in the tax payer paying more
      • MMC manufacturers making more
      • PFI contractors making more profit
  • MMC is commonly depicted by:
    • Prefabrication of panels, modules, pods
    • Craning whole parts into place
    • Thin lightweight construction
      • Industry will ‘Modernise or Die’
      • Occupants will ‘Modernize and Die’ from overheating
  • UK House builders Gearing up for MMC
    • Citu in Leeds > 750 Low carbon LTF homes/year, > £50m/year
    • Barkeley targets 10-15% of its output short to medium term
    • Taylor Winpey Future proofing its business
    • Persimmon: Space4: 40% of its houses timber frame
  • Finance Sector to manufacturer and become landlords
    • L&G: ambition to become world greatest creator of modular homes
    • PGGM: 3000 apartments across UK £600m build to rent
  • Chinese National Building Materials Company
    • £2.75 bn UK Joint adventure: 6 factories > 25,000 homes by 2020 with renewable energy
  • An opportunity to exploit
    • Petrochemicals in thin construction is seen as the only way to meet U value requirements
    • Aerogels are currently too expensive to replace plastics but would be thinner
    • VIP would be thinner still but have no decrement delay properties (will overheat)
    • Plastic insulations have no decrement delay properties and will help to overheat the property
    • 20% of housing already overheats. Zero Carbon Hub (ZCH)
    • MMC insulated with VIP or Plastic will overheat
    • MMC will overheat
    • The rush for MMC will lead to more and higher % of housing overheating
    • IMC may offer solutions:
    • Bio-based insulations have decrement delay properties and can protect from overheating
    • Bio-based insulation can be combined with aerogel insulation to reduce thicknesses
  • London mayor announced use of small sites around London to be encouraged
    • The smallest sites will need bespoke designs
    • MMC Modular may not have a role to play
    • MMC Panelized can fit into this scenario

Primitive Materials Barrier Opportunities

  • Evidence Based Design is expected more and more
  • Understanding their properties
    • Some properties not understood and never exploited
      • (1979 AJ Energy Series: articles tried, but long forgotten)
    • Sometimes missing in conventional materials
      • (E.g. Decrement Factor)
    • Sometimes unique to bio-based materials
      • (E.g. Hygroscopicity)
    • Sometimes unique combinations of properties
      • (Radiation and Conductivity Thermal Resistance & Acoustic)
  • Exploiting properties that do not exist in conventional materials or conventional know-how
    • Learning the physics of building
    • Exploiting the science of materials
    • Testing materials and/or collecting datasets
    • Developing the calculators to crunch the numbers
    • Making literature intelligent and useful to designers/specifiers
    • Educate them so they can adopt and educate others
  • Knowledge sharing
    • Dissemination
      • TGR, AECB, UKGBC, ASBP, PHT are all helping with seminars
      • But not enough authoritative documents
    • Image driven dissemination is essential
      • Architects won’t read without a cartoon, picture, diagram or table to help
      • Paragraph per picture,
      • Picture per paragraph
    • Convincing Development Control
      • Building Regulations
        • Approved Documents
          • Tertiary Documents
            • Authoritative Organisations and their Publications
            • More need to be written and published
            • Engage with those unique properties
            • ZCH failed
            • Others need to step up

© GBE NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan
1st December 2017 – 27th December 2017

Primitive Materials Future Building Offsite Manufacture OSM
Images:


Farmer Review 2016 Modernise Or Die Cover

Farmer Review 2016 Modernise Or Die Cover

Farmer Review Modernise or Die 2016 PDF


©GBE NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan
1st December 2017 – 27th December 2017

Primitive Materials Future Building Offsite Manufacture OSM
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©GBE NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan
26th December 2017

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