This standardisation can lead to mass customisation, where the construction process becomes more efficient, yet the end product can still meet diverse customer needs.. 4.
which Board Director Jaimie Johnston says, ‘allows a far wider range of clients to get the same benefits without the need to create a new system.’.Speaking about the innovative qualities of the Circle project, Co-Founder Martin Wood comments that Circle Reading was the first exercise to really connect design and construction in such an intimate way.
‘The platform principle completely enshrines design and construction as a single entity,’ he says.‘It’s effectively a way of thinking, a principle where the rationale in design supports the rationale in construction in a fully unified, virtuous circle effect.’.Johnston elaborates, explaining that the project employed an ‘evidence based approach’ to ‘balance various and often contradictory [stakeholder] needs.’ These included those of individual clinical specialisms, nursing staff, catering providers, facilities and maintenance providers, the Care Quality Commission etc...
Ultimately, Johnston explains, this facilitated an ‘overall optimum outcome,’ which he describes as being a combination of fantastic patient experience, minimised costs, optimised use of DfMA and more.‘We aren’t aware of anyone doing it in this way before,’ says Johnston, ‘because anyone who could do the stakeholder piece couldn’t then design the DfMA systems and vice versa...’.
As the Reading project demonstrates, working in this way drives a great number of efficiencies and Johnston remarks that ‘Circle were highly supportive of the design and delivery approach developed for them evolving in this way,’ noting that they ‘have always been keen to share best practice with other clients.’.
Indeed, as Wood points out, the benefits of Platforms can be applied across typologies, from healthcare to educational facilities and housing.These things really depend on who makes the standards, she says, what they are thinking of enabling in the future, and what their understanding of the future looks like.
Not all policymakers are thinking about industrialised construction, prefabrication, or DfMA.They may be looking at things in terms of one particular market application, but not in terms of others.
So, standardisation doesn’t necessarily help us on its own, but it does have a shot of helping us if someone informs it in the right way.. She also points out that, although we could easily fight forever about industrialised construction terminology, the important thing is that the core concepts remain true.In particular, she reminds us that the term DfMA does not refer to the end product.
(Editor: Automatic Hair Dryers)