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Is Off Site Fabrication Of Buildings The Answer To Meet The Governments ...




Is off site fabrication of buildings the answer to meet the governments housing targets set out in the Barker review?
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to discuss whether the use of off-site construction methods is a suitable solution to the increasing demand for housing in Britain, as outlined in the Barker Review. Modular building has proven to be beneficial in terms of space usage as well as being environmentally considerate and sustainable. The Barker Review highlights some important changes which the government are beginning to make in order to create enough homes in the UK.Property prices are inflated, well above the EU average and it is most important that offsite methods can promise to reduce the cost involved in building in order to meet the targets which the government has published.
Research is presented in the form of a literature review which evaluates the use of off-site methods and the potential of such methods to meet the targets and ideas of the government. It is proposed that off-site methods offer a wide range of opportunities to housing associations to ease social problems such as homelessness and young families unable to afford their own homes.
For secondary research there are two questionnaire surveys. One questions residents in Raines Court as to how they have found living in a modular development to be, and another interviewing construction company managers of inner city London based firms - asking their opinions on offsite construction. Research shows a high level of quality in existing modular developments, with few social problems. It also shows an increasing popularity of offsite methods amongst London-based construction companies. Data is presented as a discussion, with bullet points and graphs.
Two case studies are used. The first is Raines Court, built by Peabody Trust, which created a number of high quality, affordable homes and promoted the dynamism of offsite construction publicly and positively. The second case study is Beaufort Court in Fulham, a similar project to Raines Court but using different techniques.
It is concluded that because of the increasing success of new modular and offsite construction projects the government is going to continue to financially support the housing cooperation to invest in off-site methods. More research needs to be invested into how to reduce the costs of modular projects - this is something that would be helped if there was a higher level of public and investment interest. The popularity of off-site methods is gradually increasing and it is concluded that with new developments in technology and computer-aided design, in conjunction with the availability of new, sustainable raw materials, the credibility and success of the off-site industry will dramatically improve over the next ten to twenty years.


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