MODERN METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION
Speed and efficiency are matched by quality of build
Alex Solk, a Partner at architects, Sheppard Robson, argues that that the best way of harnessing the benefits that Modern Methods of Construction offer is ‘to be dextrous enough to use multiple solutions’ – from volumetric pods and standardised structural elements, to panelised façade solutions and pre-approved products – ‘rather than being wedded to one approach’.
Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) have been identified by the Government as playing a key role in delivering the new generation of health and social care facilities outlined in the Health Infrastructure Plan (HIP) – an ambitious initiative that calls for quality and scale. While the design perception of MMC is sometimes at odds with the technical opportunities it presents, the HIP offers a unique opportunity to raise the standard of MMC across the board, using new construction techniques. while embracing an agile approach to repeatability. A flexible approach to offsite construction puts the client and community voice at the heart of the design process, and doesn’t restrict a hospital’s ability to make bold changes in response to future challenges. How exactly we should match repeatability, exactitude, and speed, with the complexities and opportunities of a site, and unique brief, needs careful consideration, with the role of the architect essential in ensuring that speed and efficiency of delivery are matched by quality.
A long history
While the possibilities of offsite construction have tantalised architects for decades – indeed ground-breaking proposals for prefabrication were presented in the 1930s and post-World War II, through to the works of Buckminster Fuller, Eric Lyons, and Richard Rogers – remarkably little has changed. Industry initiatives and government reports have also promoted a shift to MMC – including work authored by Michael Latham, John Egan, and, most recently, the Farmer Review 2016: Modernise or Die – but MMC has still not taken hold as predicted. This is likely in part due to a lingering suspicion that MMC represents a move away from quality design towards utilitarian, non-designed, ‘bulk-buy’ spaces.
There is a middle ground between the advocates and sceptics described above. MMC is a process, and does not have a defined aesthetic that is produced from said process. When administered in a thoughtful way, with built-in flexibility to
Sheppard Robson is currently working on ‘a transformative project’ at North Manchester General Hospital (as this early concept illustration shows), creating a focal point for the community with integrated health and social care facilities, new homes, and ‘access to better education and training’, alongside ‘major new public open spaces’.
engage with the specifics of a brief, MMC is not prescriptive, and can adequately respond to a project’s exact brief, in terms of physical surrounding, future-proofing, and the pursuit of a new standard of staff wellness, among other key criteria.
Negotiating a tight site
We have reaped the benefits of a flexible approach to offsite construction when designing the Ward Replacement Programme at City Hospital, Nottingham. Negotiating a tight site in the heart of busy hospital, MMC techniques are being used to deliver the project significantly more quickly than traditional construction techniques would allow, and with minimal disturbance to patients in surrounding buildings. The quality of the external form and internal spaces is characterised not by its construction technique, but by the inherent quality that MMC delivers, with the key principles of volumetric designs being applied, so that pretty much the whole of the ultra-flexible building, apart from the cladding, is being constructed offsite.
June 2021 Health Estate Journal 55
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