Finally, there is the question of the workforce itself.
At the same time, the Construction Innovation Hub (CIH) was announced, partly to accelerate the design and development of Platforms.. Also in 2018, The UKRI backing of Demonstrator projects, such as SEISMIC, opened the door to even greater collaboration between Bryden Wood and others, resulting not only in a digital configurator for designing schools, but also a collaboration between two of the industry’s leading modular competitors, Elliot and McAvoy, resulting in a standard modular connector..In 2019, with Landsec and Easi-Space, we were successful in bidding for funding from UKRI to support a collaborative project to research and test automation in construction.
This is our work on Platforms for offices and commercial developments..This work is now a key focus for the CIH, and it is the heart of the demonstrator project that has won this latest funding from UKRI.The close collaboration between Landsec, Easi-Space, the Bryden Wood design team and a new supply chain, is now applying the P-DfMA design and prototype learnings to a live Landsec project in Sumner Street, central London..
This development will be two office buildings around an internal courtyard, rising to nine storeys and covering a total of 135,000 sq ft.It is designed to a ‘zero carbon in use’ strategy, and the efficiencies and innovations inherent to P-DfMA are already achieving remarkable gains: 40% reduction in steel used; a forecast 19.4% reduction in embodied carbon per square metre, a 36.4% carbon reduction in the substructure and 20.2% in the superstructure and façade.. Sumner Street is a game changer for construction.
But it’s important to see that it has not come in isolation.
It is a big step on a journey that is a direct result of support and collaboration between UK government, key industry players and a new supply chain.. All the learnings from the Sumner Street project will be fed back into the work of the CIH, continuing the virtuous cycle; this initiative was promoted by government at the start, and is now demonstrating how that initial support is bearing fruit and will continue to do so..Through this comprehensive analysis, we can evaluate the performance of both the data hall and chilled water system at every stage of the outage and subsequent restart, thereby validating the resilience of the design and providing a level of assurance..
This analysis allows for the optimisation of design elements, such as UPS, to ensure inclusion only where necessary, leading to significant cost savings and a reduction in embodied carbon.Accurate determination of buffer vessel sizing through this analysis helps prevent oversizing, thereby saving costs and plant space, and minimising the need for structural reinforcement..
The optimisation of the chilled water system design ensures even distribution throughout the data hall.This optimisation process is crucial, as it prevents the tendency to oversize equipment or specify unnecessary components to meet resilience requirements, providing assurance that the building will meet requirements and allowing for greater potential for economic and carbon cost savings..