A construction site in Southwark, London, will become a testbed for assembling office buildings from a reusable steel-and-concrete 'kit of parts'. The project addresses a long-standing problem in construction: each building is typically designed from scratch, making the process slow, wasteful, and expensive. By using a standardised structural platform—developed in an earlier Innovate UK project—alongside digital design and modern manufacturing methods, the team aims to prove that commercial offices can be built faster, cheaper, and with higher quality than conventional methods allow. If successful, this demonstrator could shift the entire construction sector toward platform-based approaches. Instead of one-off designs, developers would order from a catalogue of pre-engineered components—cladding, services, structure—that snap together like a giant Lego set. That would cut construction time, reduce waste, lower costs, and make buildings easier to adapt or dismantle later. The project also tackles the business and financial metrics needed to convince lenders and insurers to back this model. For the public, the payoff is more affordable, sustainable buildings delivered on schedule—a quiet transformation of how cities are built.
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"**Automated Construction Project -- 105 Sumner St, Southwark, London** The project will aim to validate and showcase the benefits that can be delivered using Platform Design for Manufacture and Assembly (P-DfMA) techniques, Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) and digital technologies on a large-scale new build commercial office development. It will use a hybrid steel and concrete structural platform that was developed as part of an Innovate UK First Phase Challenge Fund research project on Automated Construction. The structural platform developed as part of the R&D project will provide the chassis for the office floor space and the project will include the development of cladding and building services components to create a reusable 'kit of parts' based solution for offices. The objective is to showcase the development as an innovation led demonstrator project to deliver buildings 'Faster, Better and Cheaper' adopting manufacturing-based techniques and processes. The project team features industry leading organisations including; Landsec, Bryden Wood, Piercy and Company, Gardiner & Theobald, Mace and Sir Robert McAlpine. The scale and ambition of the project will be a catalyst for change and we hope a major step forward in proving the new business and financial metrics, whole life performance, and supply chain adoption needed to accelerate the transformation of the construction sector. We believe this will be the first building of its kind to be designed and constructed on this basis. **Project Details** Project: Two new build commercial office buildings, built around a publicly accessible internal courtyard, in total comprising c135,000 sqft. It will be 9 storeys high with reception and basement areas. The development will be a high quality and sustainable building with a vastly improved streetscape and public realm continuing the transformation of Southwark. Client: Landsec the UK's leading Real Estate Investment Trust. Vacant possession: 21st of October 2019\. The demolition, sub-structure and enabling works have been procured and a contract placed. Main construction works are scheduled to commence 20th April 2020\. Target programme completion is the 7th February 2022\. The design is at Stage 3 and has planning approval. A Section 73 planning application has been submitted for some minor amendments (to be determined by January 2020). Early stage due diligence and market feedback work is underway in advance of procuring the main construction works. **Areas Addressed** * Digital Methods * MMC and Platform based approaches * Whole life performance * Business models, procurement, analytics, benchmarking and metrics * Financial assurance, warranty and lending"
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