Jun 28 2006
Proof that the UK housebuilding industry is capable of responding to the challenges of 21st Century living by creating good quality homes within a target construction cost of £60,000 is set out in the Design for Manufacture Lessons Learnt publication published this week. (Friday 30 June 2006).
National regeneration agency English Partnerships and the Department for Communities and Local Government, together with help from the many organisations involved in the competition, have created the comprehensive publication which highlights the ten main lessons learnt from the competition and provides detail on the winning and commended schemes.
Launching the publication, Yvette Cooper, Minister for Housing and Planning said, “There is a clear need for more good quality affordable housing across the country. The success of the Design for Manufacture competition has been to show that you can improve quality and cut costs at the same time. Now, we want far more builders, planners and local authorities to learn from the lessons of the competition.”
The winning designs in the Design for Manufacture competition have set new standards of excellence and pave the way for even further improvements to the way homes can be better designed and economically constructed, enabling more high quality homes to be created.
Some of the lessons learnt explored in the publication include:
- Construction costs can be tamed without sacrificing quality – developers that closely linked their design, suppliers and delivery teams into a single process found savings.
- It is possible to achieve higher-density housing with houses, not just flats – developments built as a result of this competition will achieve densities of over 60 homes per hectare, mainly with houses. It’s proof that getting the design and development process right means it’s possible to have houses with gardens and parking spaces.
- Reducing construction costs doesn’t mean reducing size – the competition required all homes to be constructed for £60,000 to be a minimum of 76.5 sq m (823.46 sq ft). In fact, many of the homes could be built larger than this, some at around 88 sq m.
- Good home design can dramatically reduce energy bills – some of the winning designs are groundbreaking in terms of energy efficiency and have features that will help keep homes warm in winter and cool in summer.
Trevor Beattie, the English Partnerships Director with responsibility for the competition said, “This publication pulls together all there is to know about Design for Manufacture, from why the challenge was so necessary, to what we’ve learnt and plans for the future. The competition pushed the boundaries of housebuilding in the UK and we now need to look at ways to bring the lessons learned from this project into mainstream housebuilding.
“We also want to ensure that other public sector landowners can play their part in securing even more well-designed, economical homes. That’s why we’ll be publishing a tool-kit especially for local authorities later this year. Our efforts to continually improve UK housebuilding will not stop here. We’ve succeeded at driving down construction costs without sacrificing quality and are now committed to working with the industry to see what can be done to deliver environmentally sustainable homes that help tackle the wider climate change agenda.”
The toolkit for local authorities and other public sector landowners - How to Win at Housebuilding - will promote the principles of the Design for Manufacture competition so that it can be re-run on other sites in ways that are sensitive to local needs. The toolkit will be available later this year.