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SPECIAL REPORT
Sustainable building Stewart Dalgarno, Project Director at the Advanced Industrialised Methods for the Construction of Homes (AIMCH) project, says building new homes while meeting climate targets is possible.
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he end of the UN’s climate change conference COP26 marked the beginning of the hard work required to prevent global warming rising above 1.5°C. For the UK to play its part in lowering emissions, the construction sector, which accounts for 47% of the country’s total carbon emissions, must accelerate the adoption of new sustainable ways of working across the built environment sector. The Advanced Industrialised Methods for the Construction of Homes (AIMCH) project is one I believe offers the housebuilding industry a way to continue to improve the sector’s environmental performance. The challenges faced by AIMCH are not insurmountable, but we must acknowledge that it is concluding at a time when demand for high quality, energy efficient and affordable housing continues to grow. What excites me most about it though, is that the project could offer solutions to skills shortages, the ageing workforce and poor productivity – challenges not limited to the housing sector, while also responding to requirements to use sustainable materials and panelised MMC systems.
Accelerated delivery AIMCH's ambition is to use industrialisation to transform how we build our homes in the UK, leading to more homes that can be built quickly, viable and sustainably. If we get it right, I believe the AIMCH project will accelerate the delivery of the 120,000
new homes the UK needs each year, for an acceptable cost, compared to masonry built homes and with at least 30% reduction in build times. An integral part of the project has been the completion of a Whole Life Carbon Assessment of current building regulations over a 60 year design life, assessing four typical homes across masonry, open and closed panel timber MMC build methods. The report’s findings indicate five tonnes of embodied carbon saving, per four bed home, when using timber construction compared to masonry, equivalent to 16,500 road mile emissions. The report also finds that aerated masonry blocks have half a tonne less carbon emissions at end of life than timber frame construction methods. The carbon sequestration benefits of timber have been used in the research, benefiting all construction methods, where elements of the build use timber, such as internal non load bearing walls, floors and roofs.
Zero carbon concept house Many of our partners are working on exciting developments, using proven, reliable and viable panelised timber based MMC systems, which will soon transform how the house building sector operates. As part of AIMCH, Barratt Developments PLC has created a Z House – a zero carbon concept house that applied 50 different solutions to understand how we will deliver the “sustainable home of the future”. It is located on the University of Salford’s campus with their scientists tasked with measuring its energy efficiency to provide hard data on the home's design versus actual performance. The home’s clever design features high performing energy efficient building fabric, using Barratt Developments’ internal timber framer Oregon’s advanced panelised timber MMC systems at its core. The home incorporates PV solar panels and battery storage to generate and store power,
Professional Housebuilder & Property Developer April/May
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