The project will validate and showcase the benefits that can be delivered using P-DfMA techniques, Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) and digital technologies on a large-scale new build commercial office development.

Whole asset e.g.when a Reference Design can be repeated as a fixed design c.f.

MoJ houseblocks.The image below is an example..The depth and breadth of value achieved is greater, the bigger and more complex the Chip.

The more co-dependent elements involved, the more variables and complexity the Chip has to resolve and the wider the implications of the ways in which Chips will optimise the design.So while an inpatient room is optimised for patient comfort and the facilitation of day to day care activities, an operating theatre has more complex variables to incorporate: medical procedures, heightened levels of infection control plus the associated surgical staff, flows of clean and dirty consumables, carefully controlled flows of air, extensive use of medical equipment and data etc..

The optimal design, which we call the Reference Design, can then be largely created by combining these Chips in the most efficient way.

This Reference Design can then be built again and again as a fixed product, by clients who have control over site conditions, as per the MoJ Houseblocks..However, while every other sector has experienced disruption to their business model creating major changes, construction is very risk averse and the implications are long-term.

To get a digital thing slightly wrong has, in a sense, a transience that doesn’t matter.However, there are bigger implications for not building a building correctly..

In terms of where the construction industry is heading in the near future, Professor Glass says that in addition to prioritising our climate change issues, she’d like to see an end to the use of Return on Capital Employed for all of the major contractors.If this unsustainable situation were to change, so that we instead faced a scenario whereby Tier 1 contractors were being judged on Return on Investment, it would likely mean that these key players had disrupted their businesses, understood where change was necessary, were investing, doing more R&D, and creating net zero businesses.