The pressure on development to design and construct at increasing speed must be balanced against the critical analysis of the design brief and problem statement, and engagement with stakeholders that is so essential to improving the quality of our surroundings.
These include transportation (a pre-fabricated room is mostly air, after all) and heavy plant for lifting modules into place.Unless modules are fabricated on a just-in time basis they also have to be stored which costs money, especially if that storage needs to be sheltered from the elements.
3D modules also occupy large amounts of factory floor space and therefore absorb a high proportion of factory overheads..If these additional modular construction costs can be offset by large improvements in construction site efficiency, for example by relocating wet trades or complex specialist trades away from the site, a 3D module might make sense.But, with modular construction, it’s often the case that prefabricating comparatively simple parts of a building as 3D modules adds cost and complexity, especially if the required trades need to be present on-site anyway..
The problems found in modular construction are only compounded by inefficient factory working.The cost of any prefabricated component (indeed, any component of any building) can be divided into materials and labour.
If we ignore the cost of the labour that has gone into making the component, we only have material costs left, resulting in limited opportunities to add value.
Manufacturers have understood this for decades and spent a great deal of effort developing highly productive assembly routines that enabled the mass production, automation and commoditisation that fuelled the consumer age.. Too often factories are treated as ‘construction sites in a shed' producing bespoke, custom components with overlapping trades and poor works sequencing, causing reduced value and the same inefficiencies that are often found on construction sites.It was interesting to discover that, as a relative new business, they found many ways to make their laboratories more sustainable today than was ever thought possible, especially in terms of recycling waste.
This information will be shared more fully with the workshop participants..There are two very interesting impacts from such a strong sustainability drive:.
Firstly, the very practical impact of the space required to treat, segregate, store and move materials for recycling.Secondly, the expectations of the new cohorts of the workforce.
(Editor: Lightweight Umbrellas)