‘Leaner’ approach shows its benefits

especially in terms of speed of build, reduced on-site disruption, future adaptability, and lower environmental impact, has spread. HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie reports.

While healthcare specifiers such as NHS Trusts, and indeed some architects, may have once viewed modular, off-site constructed buildings primarily as a quick-fix solution not generally expected to stand the test of time, their speed of construction, rapid onsite assembly, and the ever higher quality of the facilities that can be incorporated within them, have led to a considerable change in perceptions over the past 5 to 10 years. In fact so marked has been this shift, that large healthcare providers now often consider such buildings as a viable first-line route to expanding capacity or enhancing existing facilities, often at a cost that compares favourably with “traditional” construction, and with significantly less disruption to hospital activities. According to Martin Goss, MD of Shrewsbury-based off-site construction consultancy, Mtech Consult, which works across both the public and private sectors, advising clients including developers, contractors, manufacturers, and blue chip end users on “sustainable and cost effective building methods”, “it is not just their practical and economic advantages that are winning off site constructed buildings new friends”. Some also consider them to be more environmentally-friendly than traditionallybuilt facilities – for example they tend to require significantly less building material to be transported to site. Their environmental advantages are also cited by Adrian Day, managing director of Terrapin, a Bletchley-based off-site construction specialist with over 60 years’ experience of providing modular building solutions. He says: “A Government survey found hospital buildings had some of the highest average carbon dioxide emissions. With low carbon construction increasingly important, off site enables the integration of environmental elements such as ground source heat pumps and rainwater harvesting, solar PV panels, green roofs, and heat recovery ventilation, in order to achieve BREEAM ‘Very Good’ or ‘Excellent’ levels. In addition, a building’s lifetime carbon emissions can be reduced – by specifying low embedded carbon building products containing a high percentage of recycled materials, for example, or those manufactured with low carbon or carbon offset energy. Working with the contractor and architect, we can advise on such options at the specification stage.”

A ‘more for less’ approach