The UK Research and Innovation-funded project will show how standardised components can be mass-produced to deliver better quality, performance and value for sectors including education and healthcare.
By using a similar technique to carmakers who build a number of different models on the same chassis, the consortium-led project aims to set the blueprint for the future of construction.
The partners said the kit of parts approach would allow highly energy efficient schools to be built off-site and then shipped to their final location.
This will reduce waste created during traditional building as well as allowing the buildings to be quick to build, give good value for taxpayers and be 100% recycled at the end of their life.
Kit of Parts Consortium
Off-site building experts Blacc; the Manufacturing Technology Centre; two off-site manufacturers, Elliott Group and the McAvoy Group; Tata Steel; the Active Building Centre; and the National Composite Centre.
The project is being accelerated after the Government announced its big school rebuilding rebuilding programme would start in 2020-21 with the first 50 projects supported by more than £1 billion in funding.
Further details of the new ten-year construction programme will be set out at the Government’s next Spending Review.
The government aims to reduce the construction costs and whole life costs of buildings by a third, while seeing those same buildings delivered in half the time and with a 50% reduction in carbon emissions from the construction sector.
Phil Clements, Tata Steel UK Technical Director, said: “This project will allow thousands of children to have access to education in buildings which have been designed using the latest technology, constructed off-site to lower emissions and can be repurposed and recycled.”
