Tackling the housing shortage: Wind and watertight in a day

With the Advanced Industrialised Methods for the Construction of Homes project reaching the halfway stage, project director Stewart Dalgarno provides an update on its progress to date and the next stage of the journey:

In 2019, the annual housebuilding target was missed by 138,978. The UK government wants 300,000 new homes built a year – a number did not hit in 50 years. Traditional methods of construction simply fall short on delivering the volume of homes required.

The events of 2020 have emphasised the need to transform the housing and construction industries if we are to deliver the quality homes needed to meet current and future demand.

Can you build a wind and watertight superstructure in a day?

This is exactly what the Advanced Industrialised Methods for the Construction of Homes (AIMCH) project set out to do when started 18 months ago, trialling a range of solutions that could help to tackle the UK housing crisis by building new homes faster.

Working with the UK’s biggest housebuilders, the project is a national meta-study to compare new and old manufacturing methods on actual building sites, and the impact Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) has on the housebuilding industry.