Sustainability & Performance of Modular Construction

Sustainable modular construction is claimed here with no figure attached. What this page carries is the method — dry assembly, a lifted base, joints that can be undone — and the limit of what it proves.

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A01 · Abstract title-block sheet

The page · 01

Why there is no percentage anywhere on this page

Almost every page in this market that carries this heading also carries a number: a waste reduction, a carbon saving, a water saving, a wall value. Those numbers are usually a study of somebody else’s building repeated without its conditions, and a procurement team that checks one and finds nothing behind it stops believing the rest of the site.

So none appears here. What can honestly be described is the method, because the method is the same on every project, and what it changes on a site is observable rather than modelled. Where your own building needs a figure — and a real project generally does — that figure is produced for your building by your own consultant, and this page says how.

The page · 02

What dry assembly actually changes on a piece of ground

There is no wet trade on one of these sites. Nothing is poured, laid in mortar, rendered or plastered where the building stands, which removes the water, the batching, the curing time and the mess that go with all four. The panel arrives with its face already made. The work on the plot is setting out, standing, fixing and closing.

The consequence is that most of the offcut, the breakage and the spoil belong to the manufacturing stage, where material is cut to a drawing and what is left is sorted rather than tipped into a corner of somebody’s land. A site where nothing is mixed and little is cut is a quieter, drier and cleaner site, and on a working resort or a lived-in plot that is worth more than it sounds.

It also compresses the time the ground is occupied. Assembly runs to a drawn sequence with the components labelled to it, so a hillside, a garden or an operating property carries the disruption for a defined stretch rather than an open-ended one. That is a claim about the sequence, not about a saving, and the sequence is drawn on the sheets where it can be checked.

The page · 03

A base that is lifted, and ground that is finished last

The drawn designs stand on a lifted base where the sheets show it, with a shadow gap beneath rather than a slab poured across the whole footprint. That gap keeps splash off the panel, and it lets the ground around a building be finished after the building instead of before it, so planting is not trampled through the work.

One design is intended to go further. Its base frame is to sit on project-specific removable supports with no permanent slab, so that it can be taken down component by component and removed, leaving capped service points and small support scars for the ground to be reinstated. Another is intended to be dismantled and delivered flat to a later site.

The page · 04

A building screwed together can be unscrewed

A dry joint is a reversible joint. Panels that are fixed rather than bonded, a frame that is bolted, glazing set in a frame and screens hung on brackets can all be unfixed in the reverse of the order they went up. Whether that is worth doing at the end of a building’s life is a question for whoever owns it then, and the option exists because of how it was put together.

This is worth stating carefully. It does not mean every one of these buildings is designed to be moved, and it does not mean a used component is as good as a new one. It means the method does not depend on breaking things out with a hammer, which is what removing a wet-built wall requires.

The page · 05

Six things this company does not claim about performance

No thermal value, no acoustic rating, no energy figure, no embodied-carbon figure, no waste percentage and no water figure is stated as ours, here or on any product page. Nor is any environmental certification or rating claimed for a design. Every one of those depends on the whole build-up, the specification, the site and a test, and none of it survives being printed as a general claim.

What is published instead is the build-up itself. Where a design is drawn, its wall, roof and base details cut through every layer and name it, and the specification, when issued, says what each panel and each coating is. Those are the inputs a consultant needs, and inputs are worth more to him than somebody else’s conclusion.

The page · 06

How your building’s performance is actually settled

With your consultant, on your project, from the drawn build-ups and the conditions of your site. Where a published standard applies to a design, it is named on the sheet and what is typical of that standard is described as typical of it rather than as a promise. The number that ends up in your documentation is one your engineer models and signs.

That is also the point at which specification changes are worth making. Glazing, insulation layers and the roof build-up are the levers, and a section drawing is where they move most easily, before anything is manufactured. Bring the question forward to the scheme stage and it is a design decision; leave it to site and it is a variation.

Questions

Questions to settle around measurable performance without borrowed claims.

Is this a greener way to build than conventional construction?

It is a drier, quieter and shorter way to occupy a site, and those are observable. Whether it is greener across a whole life depends on the specification, the transport distance, the ground and how the building is run, and answering that honestly needs a study of your project rather than a claim on a page.

Do you have a green rating or an environmental certification?

None is claimed for any design on this site. Where a client’s project is pursuing a rating, the drawn build-ups, the specification and the assembly sequence are handed to the consultant running that assessment, and the design is adjusted to what the assessment needs before manufacture rather than after.

How much construction waste does this actually save?

No percentage is published, because a percentage would be somebody else’s study wearing our name. What can be said is where the waste sits: cutting happens at manufacture, against a drawing, and what is left there is sorted. Site work is setting out, standing, fixing and closing, and very little is cut on your ground.

Can one of these buildings be taken down and moved?

One design is intended for exactly that, on removable supports with no permanent slab, and another is intended to be dismantled and delivered flat for a later site. The rest are put together with reversible dry joints, which is a weaker claim and a different one: they can be undone, but they were not conceived to travel.

What about the solar or rainwater systems?

Where a design carries a roof-mounted array or a water strategy, it is shown on the roof plan and the section for that design and described as what it is. Sizing, yield and any saving are your consultant’s work on your site, and no figure for any of them appears as ours.

Will a lifted base work on my ground?

The section shows the base as a height above finished ground with the shadow gap beneath it. What has to happen under it, and whether your slope, soil or water table changes it, is your engineer’s decision from your survey. That is settled a single time, ahead of any order, and put in writing.

Ask for the build-ups, not for a claim

Send the design you are considering to your own consultant with its wall, roof and base details, and let them produce the numbers your project needs.

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