Here’s one we made earlier
Modern methods of construction have been the ‘next big thing’ for a decade now. Will they ever fulfil their potential? Neil Merrick investigates.
Work is ticking over at Space 4, a west midlands factory that specialises in timber-frame panels for builders using modern methods of construction.
But like most operations linked to the house building industry, it has been hit by the recession. Shifts have been cut and, this year, the Castle Bromwich factory expects to produce about 2,000 homes, even though it has the capacity to build nearly three times that number.
Space 4 is owned by Persimmon, the UK’s largest house builder. When the factory was opened in 2001 at a cost of £20 million, it appeared to represent the future, with firms increasingly opting to build parts of homes - if not entire properties - offsite.
Eight years on, Space 4 has produced 12,000 homes. Ashley Lane, director of Westbury Partnerships (Persimmon’s affordable housing arm) is optimistic that offsite construction, or MMC, will prove more popular when the industry recovers and builders are under pressure to construct 240,000 homes per year.
Social landlords, and other developers receiving government grant, are most likely to use MMC, says Mr Lane, as it helps them comply with the code for sustainable homes.
‘We know that the Homes and Communities Agency is very keen to see MMC come through,’ he adds. ‘Not only does it respond to sustainability and environmental standards but it has a major contribution to make in terms of productive capacity.’
Yet the fact remains that MMC has represented the future for quite some time (see timeline, below). It is more than a decade since Sir John Egan’s report Rethinking construction called for major changes in the building industry and four years since then deputy prime minister John Prescott declared that MMC should allow a family-size house to be built for £60,000. Will there ever come a day when modern methods are used on all new homes?
The government is no longer pushing MMC towards any target and Clive Clowes, head of design and sustainability at the HCA, says MMC has probably reached its ‘natural level’.
In 2008/09, 39 per cent of homes built through the national affordable housing programme used MMC. ‘It’s probably still a minority sport, but only just,’ says Mr Clowes.
The agency remains neutral amid the sometimes vociferous war of words that can break out between MMC supporters and proponents of traditional ‘brick and block’ building.
While Mr Clowes accepts that MMC can generally meet the code for sustainable homes standards, he also acknowledges that doubts have been raised as to whether they can lead to homes overheating. ‘There is a place for everything,’ he adds. ‘We have raised the profile of MMC, but it’s a question of what works best.’
Developer Countryside Properties uses MMC whenever appropriate, says Andrew Day, director of sustainability. But while social landlords normally want to build as quickly as possible, private firms struggling with sales during the recession may opt for tradition. ‘Brick and block gives you more control,’ he explains. ‘There are many upsides to MMC but it doesn’t give you the option to slow and speed up construction.’
According to Darren Dancey, production director in the midlands and south west at Crest Nicholson, offsite construction is sometimes used to pacify planning authorities that wish to ‘tick a box’ showing they support MMC.
About 20 per cent of the company’s operations currently involve MMC, although the figure has been as high as 35 per cent. ‘We’ve got some large HCA sites where we were rattling out eight units per month,’ he says. ‘It was the only way of achieving it.’
Mr Dancey sees a future where 100 per cent of house building is through MMC, especially as the government’s target date for building 240,000 homes per year in England moves closer. ‘The block manufacturers are not moving fast enough for what we need to achieve in 2016,’ he says.
The skill of bricklaying is going to disappear as we need less and less of them.’
One thing hasn’t changed in 10 years: MMC still has its evangelists.
1998
Egan report Rethinking construction calls for radical changes to house building in the UK.
1999
Peabody Trust builds the UK’s first multi-storey volumetric housing development, in Hackney, east London
2001
Housing Corporation promotes MMC through £80 million kick-start programme
2002
Housing Forum report ‘Homing in on excellence’ concedes that offsite manufacturing can speed up house building
2003
Challenge fund continues to encourage builders to use MMC
2004
Kate Barker’s review of housing supply recommends developers explore MMC. Government tells corporation that 25 per cent of the approved development programme should use offiste construction.
2005
Deputy prime minster John Prescott calls for builders to construct £60,000 house as part of Design for Manufacture competition.
2006
Level of MMC activity by housing associations reaches 41 per cent. National Audit Office concludes that MMC cuts onsite construction costs but warns that development schemens must be carefully managed.
2008
Government drops MMC target from national affordable housing programme, as proportion of homes built offsite remains at about 40 per cent.
The Peabody experiment
It is 10 years since Peabody Trust completed an award-winning housing scheme in east London without building a single property onsite.
Thirty ‘volumetric’ homes were constructed 200 miles away at a factory in York and transported to land at Murray Grove, Hackney, that had been donated to the housing association by the council.
Ten years after being responsible for the UK’s first multi-storey volumetric housing development, it might be expected that Peabody would continue to blaze the trail. But perhaps surprisingly, it has been involved in just two more schemes, both in London, where all the homes were built offsite.
Generally, the trust prefers to combine modern methods of construction with traditional onsite working and is sceptical about whether volumetric developments represent the future in the way that some thought in 1999.
Four years after Murray Grove, Peabody built 61 homes at Raines Court, also in Hackney. Once again, entire homes were transported from York but, on a rather windy day, the crane that was meant to lift the modules on to the site was forced to stop working because it was too dangerous.
Adam Preece, principal development manager at Peabody, says schemes such as Murray Grove were done ‘in the spirit of experimentation’ and that the trust always kept an open mind. ‘It’s not something that we’d nailed our colours to,’ he adds.
Volumetric homes built in York needed to be completed in a yard outside the factory, raising the question of whether it was cheaper to transport panels to building sites rather than larger modules. ‘There are certainly simpler ways to build,’ Mr Preece says. ‘The benefits weren’t as great as we thought they’d be and, in terms of quality, we don’t think anything was gained.’
Who’s the cheapest of them all? The cost of MMC
The jury is still out on whether modern methods of construction are cheaper than traditional house building.
Smartlife, a Building Research Establishment study published earlier this year, compared the cost of building similar-sized homes using panellised steel frames, panellised timber frames and insulating concrete formwork, as well as traditional methods.
Steel proved to be the cheapest, followed closely by traditional ‘brick and block’, with ICF the most expensive. Thus any claim that MMC is cheaper appears to depend on the type of materials used.
Oliver Novakovic, director of housing futures at BRE, says there has always been ‘a black art’ around MMC, with some builders claiming it reduces costs significantly, and others describing it as a nightmare. The Smartlife report, he says, showed only that ‘you can deliver MMC to similar and slightly cheaper costs’.
While the code for sustainable homes may be pushing builders towards offsite construction, both MMC and traditional methods can deliver what is needed and are frequently combined. ‘MMC can be seen as a saviour, but sometimes they are only 20 per cent of final construction,’ adds Mr Novkovic.
Housing associations in south west England are adamant that MMC not only represents the future, but is cheaper. Almost all the 300 homes built each year by Yarlington Housing Group, part of the Advantage Southwest partnership, include timber frame panels produced offsite.
Research by the partnership, which includes four associations, suggests that MMC is about 10 to 15 per cent cheaper than traditional methods. Whereas it costs about £1,200 per square metre to build a home using traditional techniques, MMC cost between £1,050 and £1,100 per square metre.
Mike Kay, chief executive of Yarlington, acknowledges that it usually costs more to build panels in a factory than lay bricks on a construction site. But finish times are quicker, with a 20-house development typically taking 32 weeks instead of 48.
‘We are reducing the construction period by up to one third,’ he says. ‘We have benefits of efficiency and quality. The product costs more but overall development is cheaper because you’re cutting down the construction period.’
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