Project MMC

South Yorkshire Housing Association (SYHA) tasked our live project group, Project MMC, to investigate how modern methods of construction (MMC) can be used to develop high quality affordable social housing for their customers. An intense six week period of thorough research, a co-design workshop of invited professionals, and a guided tour of Kingspan’s facility ensued. This culminated in our team creating a series of actionable tools and resources to show SYHA the potential of MMC.

Firstly, we produced a detailed research document which broke down the seven different categories of MMC and explained the opportunities and constraints of each category when applied to social housing.

To help SYHA understand the myriad of considerations and challenges when using MMC for a building project, we then developed The ‘Site Optioneering Tool’; a series of diagrammatic flow charts which help design teams to analyse a given site, through the guise of MMC, using a standardised methodology.

Our co-design workshop, hosted at LiveWorks, helped us analyse the MMC potential of three prospective SYHA sites. This allowed us to listen and learn from a host of invited professionals, from engineers to architects, and apply their expertise and knowledge to the sites. Using the Site Optioneering Tool, and feedback from the co-design workshop, we included in the research booklet a detailed analysis of the three sites to be used as examples for any future SYHA projects.

Another important aspect of the project was how MMC will apply to SYHA’s Employer’s Requirements; this is an important document used in construction projects to communicate the scope of work and building specifications to potential contractors. This new section we created aims to act as a base template which SYHA can then adapt and edit to incorporate into future projects.

We set out on this journey with the hope of providing valuable tools for SYHA, and on the way we gained a wealth of relevant and actionable MMC knowledge which will stand us in good stead for our future careers as Architects. We are all immensely proud of our contribution to this project, and only hope our contribution will help SYHA in their mission of providing high quality and affordable housing for the people of South Yorkshire and beyond.

Credits

Student Team: 

Robin Hoolachan, Matthew Feetham, Sin Tung Lau, Shailendra Singh, Shixiao Tao, Holly Beechener, Kristin Read, Frances Hedgley, Jingwen Shi, Yuchen Guo, Sean Feary, Dominik Los

Mentor:

Simon Chadwick