Offsite methods are at the heart of one of the UKs most exciting housing developments. hoUSe is Urban Splashs new residential concept and is set to revolutionise the UKs attitudes to housing where buyers can configure their home exactly as they want it.
The inaugural house scheme in New Islington, Manchester, is designed by shedkm, the award-winning architects behind other ground-breaking offsite projects in Manchester, including Chimney Pot Park in Salford and MoHo in Castlefield and has been conceived to bring real choice to homebuyers. With the idea of custom-build becoming more prevalent, it will bring aspects of self-build to the mass market without the need to project manage or have a limitless budget to fund the construction.
With hoUSe, buyers can configure their home as they want it. Firstly they choose a size (either 1000 sqft or 1500 sqft) and then pick the arrangement of spaces within the house and make selections from a range of specifications as they go through the purchase process. All homes also have a secure parking space and a garden. hoUSe is designed to be 25% bigger than a typical newbuild and is architect-designed and super-flexible.
In order to deliver the important vision of customer choice, Urban Splash needed to rethink how it was going to build the hoUSe concept. It wanted to make houses with great space standards: high ceilings, big windows and give customers the ability to alter and change the layouts both initially when they buy, or if they are on a budget, the option to buy a base model and over time improve and adapt it. Choices range from having their living room on the top floor with an exposed pitched roof – or if they prefer garden living: homes that come with a more conventional living room on the ground floor. Floor plans for each floor include completely open plan living to lots of rooms, plus flexibility on size and type of kitchen and floor finishes.
The construction method was important to make these choices manageable from a delivery point of view and predictable from a cost point of view, with offsite manufacture benefiting both criteria. Exploiting the chosen construction method allowed all internal walls to be non-loadbearing. This drove the development of the range plan choices available as sales options, and also allows purchasers to adapt the homes over time, without costly structural alterations.
Each option is additive so the main elements of the construction do not change – the pack of components for the choices are brought in and assembled within the manufacturing sequence. The construction method, design and customer journey, from plot sales to specification, have been developed together to suit offsite manufacture. Most elements of construction are disaggregated from weather and site conditions so that the programme is predictable and can be continuous. Should capacity become an issue, factory manufacture can accommodate shift-working something not possible on most residential development sites.
The houses are constructed offsite using a closed panel timber volumetric building system. Factory conditions give rise to greater dimensional accuracy with all items pre-cut and machined prior to delivery to the assembly line. This accuracy leads to great speed in construction, with no alterations and amendments to deal with or inaccurate setting out. The timber panels themselves give excellent thermal performance to the walls (0.15 U-Value) and roofs (0.1 U-Value) as well as being incredibly airtight (between 1 and 2 ACH on testing).
There is a mechanical ventilation with heat recovery system (MVHR) which works to ensure air flow through the property and capture any heat before exiting the home. The level of performance is more easily achieved offsite than using more traditional building materials. The vision is that with consistent factory conditions and quality control, Urban Splash will be able to deliver homes of a consistently higher quality with fewer customer care issues. Areas developed to suit factory manufacture include elements delivered pre-sized to the factory for assemble, glulam and timber I-beams are all delivered to the right size to ensure an efficient assembly line and dry construction which is essential for this environment. QA control is more easily achieved with the smaller, more focussed assembly teams helping to create this unique concept.
Offsite manufacture also makes a positive contribution to the impact that the construction industry has on a developments existing neighbourhood. It reduces the number of deliveries to site, the number of operations which need to take place onsite, less noise and time with fewer transport problems. There are higher levels of safety and welfare for the team with less working at height.
Each terraced house is delivered in two or three modules depending on whether it is a two or three-storey property. As such, each volumetric module has a floor and a roof, which means excellent acoustic insulation. The units come to site almost complete so the roof finish, windows and cladding are factory-fitted. Each block is zipped up around the edges and between each other after being craned into place.
The interiors come fully-fitted, so kitchens, bathrooms, floor finishes and mechanical and electrical installations are all carried out at the factory. The design team and factory team have investigated a wide range of designs, materials, products and fittings to maximise the level of offsite manufacture whilst providing the highest quality finish. The houses can be finished in almost anything, which is essential to expand the concept UK-wide, where local context will require a variety of external solutions. BIM and factory-based design technology allows precise scheduling of all components, reducing waste and increasing cost certainty.
The hoUSe envelope would meet CFSH level 6 (the highest level) for thermal performance. This can be achieved with traditional building techniques but it would prove much more difficult. The offsite method that the team has adopted achieves this as standard. Other examples of the benefits of offsite construction include the window seats and walk in bay windows which were designed to be factory-fitted, the solar thermal installations were developed through consideration of alternative products and assembly tested to suit factory application and transport.
For the hoUSe concept, offsite construction has allowed for greater quality control and project management efficiency. The design and delivery approach adopted by Urban Splash and the project team encapsulates everything that offsite construction and factory-controlled methods of manufacture can provide. Pioneering projects like New Islington are key to providing exciting, flexible and defect-free living spaces across the UK that appeal to a wide range of homebuyers from first-timers to expanding families.
For more information visit: www.urbansplash.co.uk| www.shedkm.co.uk
