Offsite Construction for Mass-Retrofit: Barriers and Opportunities

Duran, Ozlem

Abstract

UK housing is one of the most energy inefficient in Europe. Energy-efficient retrofit is one of the key mitigations to housing crises, fuel poverty, and reducing carbon emissions. The UK housing stock is aimed to be decarbonised by 2050 and this requires retrofitting 25 million houses until 2050: ~2,500/day. An accelerated effort towards decarbonisation of existing housing stock is needed by domestic mass-retrofit. The benefits of offsite construction (OSC) in new buildings are widely studied and highly praised for higher speed of construction; however, research of OSC in retrofit, especially domestic mass-retrofit is limited. This chapter focuses on why the construction industry is slow adopting OSC for mass-retrofit, assesses the barriers, and determines the opportunities to accelerate the construction industry’s transition. OSC in social housing mass-retrofit is taken as an exemplar because of its repetitive design and construction. Interviews were conducted with stakeholders, manufacturers, local council officers, academics, and policymakers. It is concluded that the barriers may be resolved by implementing communication between stakeholders, innovative construction strategies, and policies requiring collaboration between Local Councils and SMEs, and, as a result, achieving a pipeline of work, coordinated workforce, and quality assurance through robust regulations.

Citation

Duran, O. (2024). Offsite Construction for Mass-Retrofit: Barriers and Opportunities. In Innovations, Disruptions and Future Trends in the Global Construction Industry (185-197). Routledge

• Online Publication Date: Jun 1, 2024
• Publication Date: Jun 7, 2024
• Deposit Date: Dec 17, 2024
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 185-197
• Book Title: Innovations, Disruptions and Future Trends in the Global Construction Industry
• Chapter Number: 13
• ISBN: 9781003372233