Contact →

Tag: panel

  • HPH351: Creating affordable, high quality, low carbon homes – with Linda Farrow

    HPH351: Creating affordable, high quality, low carbon homes – with Linda Farrow

    Linda Farrow from Agile Homes explains how their prefabricated panelised system can deliver high quality and truly affordable homes that are good for the planet.

    Interview with Linda Farrow

    Linda Farrow and her partner Craig White set up Agile Homes in 2019 to address the need for better housing in the UK. They aim to deliver low-cost homes without sacrificing on quality, and each of their buildings is low carbon, energy efficient and has the ability to be disassembled easily (at the end of its life cycle).

    Timber panels with straw in-fill are made off site

    Linda explains that at the core of an Agile Home is their Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) panelised system. These panels are prefabricated in a factory and then assembled quickly on site, giving you a watertight structure within a day or two. The use of natural materials like timber and straw ensures that the homes have an extremely low embodied carbon and the panelised nature of the system mean it can be easily customised to meet the client’s needs. This makes it incredibly versatile and can be used for a variety of projects, from a block of flats to a one bedroom bungalow.

    Their housing model aims to overcome common challenges

    Linda explains that as part of their mission to make good quality and affordable housing accessible in the UK, they needed to identify the current barriers in the construction industry and come up with creative solutions to overcome them.

    There is a cultural wariness of adopting renewable materials

    England has a romance with brick and block construction that is proving tricky to shift. Even our children’s stories have perpetuated this message by telling us that a house made out of brick will be sturdy whereas a house built from straw and sticks will leave us vulnerable to attack.

    This cultural mindset shift will take time to change but as more projects are completed it will keep demonstrating how well natural materials can work.

    There is a lack of affordable land to develop

    The price of land is currently a major barrier for affordable housing projects and often takes up a large proportion of the budget.

    By collaborating with councils, housing associations and charities, Agile Homes works to unlock land at low or no cost for social value. This can quickly reduce the delivery cost by around a third.

    It needs to be easier to finance and insure sustainable projects

    It can still be a challenge to finance or insure ecological projects because they are deemed higher risk.

    So Agile Homes has invested time in developing relationships with companies such as the Ecology Building Society and they are now an approved supplier.

    They also gained BOPAS (Build Off-site Property Assurance Scheme) accreditation which is recognised by mortgage lenders as providing the necessary assurance that properties that use modern methods of construction (MMC) will be readily mortgageable for a minimum of 60 years.

    Gaining planning consent is not always straightforward

    Getting planning permission for a project can be quite involved and take time, which is why Agile Homes have developed a modular solution called TAM which complies with the Caravan Act. This generally means planning permission will not be required because they are moveable rather than permanent structures.

    TAM (Transportable Accommodation Module) is a rapid response housing solution

    TAM is a prefabricated, rapid-response housing solution.

    The modules can be transported ‘flatpack’ to site and assembled quickly, leaving you with a watertight shell in a day or two and operational within a few weeks. Depending on the site and the needs of the client, TAM can also be umbilical to an existing building, using the same power, water and drainage systems without the need for planning permission.

    “We’re not quite there yet, but one of our aims is to make it as easy for individuals and community led organisations to buy into our system as if they were going to a car showroom, and they can sign the finance agreement and drive away in their car. So in the same vein, they could sign a finance agreement and have their TAM delivered to their site”

    Delivering a ‘turnkey’ solution helps to maintain quality

    The larger the development the more likely it is that different companies and sub-contractors will be delivering different aspects. Inevitably this can lead to mistakes or inconsistencies. So at Agile Homes, where possible, they like to control the whole process.

    “In essence it’s about control, and making sure that we can deliver the quality of product to the client. If you use a conventional procurement method where you’ve got the design and then you transfer over to a main contractor, the main contractor is incentivised to find all manner of ways to reduce their costs and increase their margin. And that’s not a criticism, that’s just the way the system is set up. We are a values led organisation and our board scrutinises everything that we do carefully. So I think it is about aligning everything that we do with our core value of respect for people and planet. It’s about control throughout the process to make sure that we can deliver to that time after time for our clients.”

    LILAC in Leeds

    Prefabrication can take place at a ‘pop-up’ factory

    The panelised system has been designed so that it can be put together with high end power tools. In certain circumstances – such as at the request of a community led project – they can bring the manufacturing closer to site and create a pop-up factory in empty barns or industrial units. This has the added benefit of upskilling communities who are interested in sustainable building.

    The Agile team

    The best collaborators have respect for people and planet

    “The ideal client would be someone whose values align with ours, so respect for people and planet, someone who has access to substantial amounts of patient capital, who is like us, genuinely interested in providing as many people as possible with homes that are affordable in perpetuity. Because having an affordable home, a safe civil space to be in is the foundation stone, in our view, for sustainable regenerative communities. And climate change is quite rapidly going to be a question of water and food crisis. So there are many, many immense challenges on the horizon for society. We want someone who, like us is very focused on helping society to put in place the foundation stone for us to then have the capacity to deal constructively with all the challenges that are yet to come.”

    Inter-governmental policy is needed to be able to deliver widespread affordable housing

    Linda explains that the biggest challenge for Agile Homes is access to patient capital and limitations caused by a lack of inter-governmental collaboration on housing policy.

    “Governments have a duty in between terms and outside of party political allegiances to look after human beings and the planet. There are some policies that should be negotiated and agreed as being inter governmental.”

    The natural materials contribute to a calm environment

    Agile Homes has carried out work for local authorities, housing associations and charities, and quite a lot of their residents are vulnerable. This can range from physical disabilities, mental health issues to learning disabilities. So some key feedback they have received is that the natural materials and quality design have created a calm atmosphere which can be of great comfort to anyone but particularly to those with special needs or mental health challenges.

    Agile Homes are committed to sustainability from their build system to their business model

    Linda explains that Agile Homes aims to create a business model for affordable housing by looking at a wide range of resources which promote sustainability and social value:

    The Agile Homes team is also in the process of finalising their Carbon and Social Value Tokens, which will allow people to offset their carbon emissions in local, sustainable, social developments.

    “We’ve been thinking a lot about how to we evidence and generate revenue from the carbon storage that we’re achieving in our buildings and also in the social value that we’re creating. So we’ve been doing work behind the scenes to build calculators and we’re just about to go live with what we call carbon and social value tokens that can potentially be traded. What that means is that we have found clients who are interested in actually buying and paying for the stored carbon and the generated social value as part of their ESG governance systems and processes. So rather than offsetting their carbon footprint by paying for X 1000 trees, in a plantation 1000s of miles away, they’re choosing to buy the carbon that we can evidence is being stored for a minimum 60 year design life in our buildings and I think that’s very exciting. We have plans to use that methodology to generate revenue that can then further reduce the costs of some of our schemes for our most vulnerable clients. We’re really excited about that extension to the model and that rethinking of how do we generate value and revenue in a truly regenerative economy?”

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Agile Homes

    Transcript

    Download the transcript of this episode.

    Please connect with us

    Subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts

    Like our Facebook page

    Follow us on X

  • HPH258 : Using a turn-key design and build company to deliver an ecological home – with Neil Sutherland

    HPH258 : Using a turn-key design and build company to deliver an ecological home – with Neil Sutherland

    Neil Sutherland explains how using a design, manufacture and delivery company can give you a better quality of construction.

    Interview with Neil Sutherland

    Neil didn’t take a conventional route into architecture. After leaving school at 16 he undertook a technical apprenticeship with an engineering company for a few years. It was only after finishing his apprenticeship and going travelling around Europe that the wonders of Florence turned his head to architecture. He returned to Scotland, completed his degree and promptly set up his own practice, MAKAR, an architect-led, ecological design and build company.

    Makar House, Kinloss, Morayshire, Scotland.

    A unique entity focused on the delivery of great places

    Neil summarises MAKAR as not being an architectural practice, builder or manufacturer, but a combination of the three.

    His first ten years in business were spent working out how best to develop and design buildings, and was disappointed by the options available to him on the delivery side of things.

    When he moved to a live on a farm with his family around 16 years ago, he had land available where he was able to develop and grow his business to include the manufacturing. He now has a couple of large workshops and employs close to 50 people.

    Their unique offering means they are currently working at capacity producing homes mostly in the Scottish Highlands, but are also looking to mainstream what they do and make it more widely available.

    Certainties can be provided to clients

    Neil is able to offer certainties to clients, around design, programme, workmanship and cost. With the alternative being to work with a number of consultants and a builder, he says it can be difficult to find a company who are motivated by ecological progressive areas of working who are able to take on an architect’s idea and make it work.

    “As I’ve learnt over the years, the intention is the first stage but one has to figure out how to get things delivered. The execution of things is perhaps far more challenging than coming up with bright ideas.”

    There are three aspects to a successful project outcome

    The first is having a thorough understanding of the client’s brief. This involves taking time to sit down with them and really understand their needs.

    The second aspect is the site analysis. Every site will have constraints and opportunities, but there’s always context; things to respond to, things you want to exemplify or even perhaps reduce.

    The third element is a flexible delivery approach.

    Neil believes as long as none of these three aspects are compromised, as he suggests happens in the standard approach to the design and delivery of housing, the customer will end up with a wonderful outcome.

    Scotland has an abundance of quality timber

    Scotland’s forestry cover has an unusual species mix, dominated by pine, fir, larch and spruce.

    Neil’s company is looking to develop progressive ways of utilising that timber, from a structural perspective right through to insulation. They use the common characteristics of those species for different applications and avoid using chemical treatments wherever possible.

    Spruce and Scots pine for example can be used for the carcassing of a panel type construction, Douglas Fir for large section exposed beams and posts, and larch is used extensively on the external applications of buildings, such as cladding and decking.

    “There’s enough there to do everything we want to do, to do it without chemical treatments, and to work in anticipation of the circular economy, in anticipation of the idea that timber buildings are uniquely adaptable in the sense that they are repairable and you can change them. You can take them apart and put them back together again.”

    They work closely with sawmills

    In other parts of the world, and particularly in Europe there are many small to medium sized mills, which relate to their local resource and how it’s used. In Scotland, many of the small to medium sized mills haven’t survived so MAKAR tend to use a few large sawmills along with a small number of smaller ones.

    Rather than the usual design approach of designing something and then looking for what you’re going to use to build it, in normal situations they would look at the resource available and respond to that, buying the timber directly from the sawmill.

    They use a lean process

    Lean process improvement is largely used in manufacturing to improve efficiency and reduce waste.

    Neil’s interpretation is that it’s about people; what motivates them to do things carefully, and with a lot of attention to detail, getting things right the first time and really enjoying what they’re doing.

    “It’s when you go about making things, when you connect the theory and practice of things together, you get a third thing that comes out which is a kind of tangible, pragmatic capability which is not held up as important as it is, in actual fact.”

    And Neil believes it is the people who are making things who are the best people to ask about how to improve the process.

    An ecological approach to engaging with the world

    MAKAR use the term ‘meaningful work’ to explain their working methods. It’s about their work being respectful to everyone involved, and respectful to things beyond themselves.

    “Every time we build a house, we know that it’s going to impact on people’s lives in a very profound manner. MAKAR exists because we believe that great buildings and places change people’s lives.”

    The aim is for quality, not speed

    The main constraint that MAKAR have with building the houses is the transportation. Their standard panel size is around three metres wide so that it can be transported by road relatively easily.

    Such off-site construction methods may be more expensive than other alternatives, but they will be better and more consistently made and speed and cost reductions will come about over time.

    The pieces of the house are made in sequence: first the floor, wall and roof panels, then the post and beam elements and finally the modular elements which are the parts of the house that have the plumbing, ventilation and electrics in them.

    They try and do as much of the servicing within the modules at their workshop as possible as they believe this to have the best outcomes.

    “But the future is about having less and less equipment, more and more fabric first, more and more simplicity around buildings really. But use the word optimisations. So, what equipment you do have you have to make sure it is working well and it’s optimised.“

    Find out more

    Visit the website of MAKAR

    Follow MAKAR on Twitter

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Neil Sutherland.

    Please connect with me

    Subscribe, rate and review the podcast in iTunes

    Rate and review the podcast on Stitcher

    Like our Facebook page

    Follow us on Twitter