I don’t believe this is necessarily achievable just by changing materials.
Professor Glass points out that as the construction industry has begun to progress forward in recent years, new terms like Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) and platform construction (P-DfMA) have burgeoned into existence.With so many industry stakeholders, it’s inevitable that we’ll face a certain amount of confusion and miscommunication as we await consensus on exact definitions.
In fact, academics might spend an entire career trying to define a term, as these definitions facilitate clarification and understanding, enabling work to be positioned accordingly.However, it’s important that we agree to draw a line under the process at some point, asserting that a consensus on meaning has been reached..Equally, we must recognise just how crucial construction standards are, particularly as the industry modernises and transforms.
UK construction companies have been slow to enable staff to be part of committees where standards are created.This is a missed opportunity, as all parties should be working together to advance the whole industry in this regard.
Regulations should have a significant and authoritative amount of input as they are developed, particularly given the long-term nature of the work, with buildings expected to last between 60-100 years.
Equally, spending more time in the design phase of a project would enable us to truly understand the brief and open up the problem statement, ultimately preventing projects beset with difficulties as a result of a lack of planning.. One challenge we’ll face going forward is that, as innovation increases and we begin to iterate more quickly, the lag between innovation happening and standards struggling to keep up, will begin to get in the way.We also wanted to map out all of the different typologies it was possible to build, in order to create a common language with which to talk about housing.
Because of the density requirements of inner-city London sites, we initially focused on central corridor apartment buildings within PRiSM.We started with typologies which were most commonly in use and would therefore provide the biggest benefit.
However, we built PRiSM so that it could be expanded to include additional housing typologies and geographies in future, if we were to open the app up for further adoption in suburban or rural settings.In this sense, PRiSM represents a truly open-ended workflow, with the potential for continual expansion and development.. Driving Value with PRiSM: Quality and Affordability in Residential Architecture.