Modular activities

Pre-packed houses, window frames that clip into place and bathrooms which come in ready sealed modulesÉ Lego's latest offering? Not quite.

These are just some of the factory-manufactured components that more and more mainstream house builders are coming round to.

Volume house builders like George Wimpey and Westbury have woken up to the fact that the cornerstone of building methods in the 21st century is not going to be the futuristic space-age home of cartoon characters such as the Jetsons - instead the future of house building lies in taking a precision-engineered approach to the industry and this means prefabrication.

Not prefabrication in the sense of using new and unfamiliar building materials, but prefabrication which retains materials everyone is accustomed to, along with keeping the comforting appearance of traditional brick-faced homes.

"We will retain traditional brick exteriors but our interiors will offer greater choice and set new standards for finish and flexibility," says Robin Davies, group marketing director of Space4 Ltd, Westbury's new company, which has been set up to produce factory-manufactured components for house building.

Delivered to site in a series of panels and floor cassettes, a Space4 house will include factory fitted windows as well as integral conduits in the walls to provide service channels for plumbing and electrics.

With the ability to erect the internal structural envelope of the house and roof it within two days, Davies says Westbury expect Space4 to halve the time it takes to build a typical house from sixteen weeks to eight.

Similarly, familiar building materials are also being used by George Wimpey and The Guinness Trust, who have joined Britspace in a venture to build two and three bed semi-detached modular homes.



While traditional building materials are not being sacrificed at the altar of high tech automation, they are simply being handled in a different way.

According to a spokesman from George Wimpey, the houses use traditional materials in a traditional way, however the difference is in the process rather than the materials.

Made from cold rolled galvanised steel, the modules' external walls are factory-finished in brick slips while the accompanying roof panels are topped in granite-faced steel roof tiles.

It is not just mainstream house builders who are investing in pre-fabrication either. Developer Sunley Estates is working with the Elliott Group, based in Peterborough, to develop four factory-made houses at Sovereign Harbour near Eastbourne, East Sussex.

Fronted in bricks and possessing tiled roofs, the houses look for all intents and purposes like the other homes on the development - however, the major difference is that the brickwork was laid in Elliott's factory at Peterborough. While the bricks are fixed onto steel-framed modules which are later joined together to form the house, the roof is made in three modules and tiled on site.

Using conventional building methods, it normally takes Sunley 24 weeks to build one of its houses - the factory-built one was assembled on site in a day and was ready for occupation in a week.

With interest growing in pre-fabrication, the need to reassess the use of building materials has never been greater. Over the next five pages, we take a look at recent projects and examine the ways materials are now being applied.