Construction Techniques in Today's Era: Typical Obstacles and Resolutions
Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) hold the promise of delivering fast, high-quality, and affordable social housing. However, the widespread adoption of MMC in the social housing sector faces several challenges. This article explores the main obstacles and potential solutions to accelerate the use of MMC in social housing.
Lack of Standardization and Codes
Some MMC technologies, such as 3D-printed geopolymer concrete, lack uniform standards and building codes, hindering their acceptance and application in construction projects. To address this, industry and policymakers must develop tailored standards and guidelines that ensure the reliability and safety of MMC materials and methods.
Technical Challenges
Certain MMC materials require specific curing methods that are difficult to replicate on-site, leading to variability and performance risks. Consistent quality control and resolving on-site processing challenges are needed.
Coordination and Awareness
MMC demands tight coordination between factory production and on-site assembly, requiring all contractors and subcontractors to understand specific sequencing, tolerances, and delivery schedules. Education and better integration of project teams are essential to overcome this.
Supply Chain and Labor Issues
Strengthening supply chain logistics and workforce training tailored for MMC is critical to address the traditional construction sector's high labor costs, skilled labor shortages, and material supply chain problems.
Ethical and Social Acceptability Concerns
Rapid and affordable MMC can raise concerns about whether housing provides dignity, safety, and long-term sustainability. Adopting hybrid approaches that balance speed, quality, durability, and community involvement can mitigate these issues.
Collaboration as the Key to Overcoming Challenges
Trina Chakravarti, Project Director for the Building Better initiative, facilitates collaboration between housing associations, local authorities, and manufacturers to advance the use of MMC in building quality social housing fast. Collaboration offers greater agency, better control over processes, and a way to take a hold and kickstart change for medium to small housing associations.
Trina Chakravarti has also established a strong partnership with Procurement for Housing to aggregate supply pipelines, making it easier for housing associations to access MMC as a group through bulk buying.
Addressing Perceived Risks
The perceived risk associated with MMC is largely due to a lack of long-term hard evidence of high yield return on investment. Building Better offers free resources to help establish binding risk-sharing agreements, and seeking any free legal advice that you can access is recommended.
Overcoming Challenges Together
In summary, overcoming the challenges to MMC adoption in social housing requires developing and implementing clear, enforceable standards and codes for MMC materials and processes, addressing technical limitations, enhancing coordination through education and integration of factory and site teams, strengthening supply chains and investing in workforce skills aligned with MMC, and ensuring housing solutions are ethical, sustainable, and culturally appropriate by involving communities and balancing rapid construction with quality.
Only five out of around 16 major UK-based public lenders who deal with social housing have considered implementing a funding strategy for MMC-built homes. Through the Building Better initiative, Trina has identified four ideas that aid collaborative partnerships and unblock the path to MMC uptake. Sharing lessens the burden of collaborative projects. Communicate often and openly with stakeholders to help overcome roadblocks and thornier issues that will inevitably come up.
With collaboration, education, and a focus on addressing the challenges head-on, the social housing sector can embrace MMC and deliver affordable, sustainable, and high-quality housing for all.
Data-and-cloud-computing technology could play a crucial role in streamlining the process of developing standards and guidelines for MMC materials and methods, facilitating collaboration between industry and policymakers.
Policy-and-legislation must address the supply chain and labor issues in the MMC sector to promote ethical and sustainable practices in social housing, ensuring the general news headlines showcase the positive impact of MMC on the building industry and communities.
