UNLOCKING MMC & OFFSITE IN RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENTS ROUND TABLE REVIEW 53
for manufacturing, rather than on a project by project basis.” Construction innovator Sam Stacey of A7C (ex-director of innovation at Skanska who oversaw the previous Government’s £170m Transforming Construction Challenge), addressed the cost uplift. “You will need to spend a little bit more on your build, and therefore people who bought their land on the basis of particular development appraisal are going to take a little bit of a hit,” he said, doubting that mortgage lenders currently appreciated the resulting lower running costs. There was an extended discussion on PMV (Premanufactured Value – the key metric for developers), from how it clashes with traditional means of supplying and construction, but also its scope and defi nition, with some elieing it covers a lot more than people assume. Medite Smartply found in its survey that half of timer frame fi rms claimed confusion around what it means meant they were not declaring PMV on projects. As it’s a requirement to achieve 55% PMV on homes (within the 25% that need to be MMC in each development to get Affordable Homes Programme funding from Homes England), it’s extremely important to provide clarity on what PMV actually means. The Government’s MMC Taskforce, in order to help achieve its goal of driving adoption, as well as pushing forward the Timber Roadmap, needs to try and ensure this is done. But, delegates such as Stephen Wightman of AtkinsRéalis said that the target did not in practice constitute a major advance in offsite, as “you can meet 55% using traditional construction – a window counts as ‘pre-manufactured value.’”
SOLUTIONS
The second half of the round table brought the chance to hear from the sponsors on their key issues around MMC, and provide insights from the group. We also delved further into likely realistic solutions that could help adoption in housebuilding, in particular the prognosis for standardisation, and what it could look like. This was partly driven by Medite Smartply’s question, which spoke to the accepted wisdom that greater standardisation of designs was fundamental to MMC viability, and greater uptake of timber frame, but it came with a host of challenges.
While volumetric construction has faltered, with the massive initial outlay and logistical challenges allied to housing market fragility, and persistent insurance
NEW STANDARDS Sam Stacey of A7C explains why more acceptance of standardised design is fundamental
problems, panelised Category 2 timber solutions are providing resilient. (Stephen Wightman pointed out that “there are some very successful volumetric businesses in the UK, and none of them are in housing. lat-paced wall, fl oor, and roof elements are more fl eile, allowing bespoke designs to be realised on complicated urban sites, and align with the faric-fi rst agenda, as well as eing easier to transport. Medite Smartply’s Roly Ward zoned in on the need for developers to “restructure fi nancing, procurement, and ris-sharing models,” asking how they would do this in order to “transition to a standardised, pipeline-driven approach that makes MMC and offsite solutions such as Category 2 timber frame the commercially viable default.” Roly Ward added that the solution to growing timber frame’s use in housing cannot lie with the “top six or seven house builders” alone; “we need the smaller people in that category to be scaling up.” Unfortunately, stigmas persist around the use of timber frame, said Tony Woods of Procurement for Housing: “Systems have been around a long time, and most of them work quite well, but it’s perceived risk. I always liken it to the ‘Three Little Pigs’ story.”
But the ‘macro’ cultural change would be the biggest nut to crack – Rory Bergin said that for HTA Design, accountability driven by often vertically-integrated and therefore ‘joined-up’ delivery was the key: “Projects that have been most successful have been where the manufacturer, developer and contractor have all been the same entity, so they haven’t been
fi ghting against each other. n these cases, there has been a single point of responsibility, he said. However, Richard Quarry of Baker
Ruff Hannon said that that legislation was “driving the industry down the MMC route anyway,” from Part L and O to the Future Homes Standard; “a lot of my clients are looking at ‘EPC A’, and you’ve also got local sustainability goals; the hurdle rate on that is so vast you wouldn’t get over it with traditional forms of construction anyway.”
Sam Stacey concurred, but also focused on the oerwhelming enefi ts of – “quality, waste, technical complexity, all much better addressed with MMC.” Stephen Wightman gave an example of a new timber frame system to the UK which “out of the box” provided air tightness of 0.3. He said “if the Government imposed those kinds of standards it will drive uptake, because they can’t achieve it [with traditional construction].”
There was also in-depth discussion bemoaning the demise of the Code for Sustainable Homes, and praising the AIMC4 collaborative project on affordable sustainable housebuilding solutions.
AESTHETIC ASSUMPTIONS In his question to the group, Andrew Shepherd of co-sponsor Ibstock Brick focused on the role of design, and the “myth that architects don’t like MMC,” asking delegates how standardised MMC can be deployed “without compromise on architectural freedom and longevity.” He said part of dispelling the myth was realising that some of the UK’s most loved developments are terraces of homes
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