construction? So you think you know


In our last issue, we looked at Decarbonisation and the challenge that faces all of us in ensuring the future of our planet. This time, we take a closer look at how the construction industry is starting to embrace this challenge, and what our homes of the future need to be.


“Our homes are the most important piece of architecture in our lives,” says Mark Southgate, CEO of the Ministry of Building Innovation & Education (MOBIE). “A well-designed home can promote our wellbeing, a poorly design one the opposite.”


And Mark should know, he has spent his career working in roles that influence both our natural and built environments. “High standards of home design and high-quality home-building should be the norm. This includes zero carbon to combat climate change and address fuel poverty; secure homes and neighbourhoods that promote mental and physical health; and adaptable homes that facilitate healthy ageing.”


Mark points out that the UK is a long way from that right now. The way we build houses has hardly changed in 100 years. Where other manufacturing sectors have undergone revolutions, much of our housing ‘technology’ is over 100 years old. It is incredible that for one of our most expensive purchases and monthly outgoings, time has largely stood still. The UK faces three particular challenges when it comes to our homes: • We are not building enough houses: we are in a housing crisis. The government is committed to building 300,000 houses per year by the mid-2020s, but even in our best years, we only manage to build a little more 200,000. We must significantly increase the number that we build.


• The quality of houses is inadequate: that’s quality in terms of design, construction and performance. Housebuilding remains rooted in tradition but we must transform how we build, learning from the best manufacturing industries here and from abroad.


• There is a homebuilding labour shortage: we have an enormous lack of new talent coming into the housebuilding and construction industries.


44 Make The Future Yours! Issue 2


Recent reviews predict that the industry’s workforce will decline by 20-25% in a decade, and that 32% of the UK construction sector workforce is aged 50 or over, with only 10% under the age of 25. We must bring in new talent if we are to build the homes we need and deserve. Modern Methods of Construction are part of the solution, but so is a stronger customer focus, and a culture of continuous improvement. We should demand houses that are cheaper to run, better to live in, adaptable, last for longer and reduce our environmental footprint.


In the 21st century, we should be building homes in very different and much better ways than we have done in the past. With incredible developments in digital technology, the amazing research and development that goes into the performance of individual building products and higher standards of building practice, we have an opportunity to radically transform our product. Learning from other industries we can transform house building into a clean, precision- engineered and efficient product and process. “One of these new methods could be factory-built houses, for example” Mark explains. As more home building factories are built (and there are some already) the number of manufactured homes increases, and the manufacturing cost of each home will reduce. Factory-built homes give us an incredible opportunity to embrace the digital and clean-tech manufacturing age making homebuilding more efficient, more professional and potentially a more appealing industry to work in. It has the opportunity to revolutionise the way we order, buy, design, make, live-in and maintain 21st century homes. Prefabrication could be the home building revolution our industry needs to change. We need to inspire the next generation to want to be part of it.


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