The acute demand for affordable housing in cities is well documented. In the UK for example, it’s estimated that up to 8,4 million people live in either inadequate, unaffordable or unsafe conditions (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-49787913). As in past eras of housing crises, the problem’s enormity forces all stakeholders involved in the procurement or provision of dwellings to scrutinize all aspects of housing’s development. Construction's stagnating productivity is a subject that gets ample publicity and attention as an area that could be improved to deliver quality and affordable dwellings. Today as in the past, off-site construction is promoted as a way forward. Prefabrication's sometimes questionable reputation and connotation was generated in these moments of social turmoil. Post-war prefabs were wrought with doubtful construction quality giving the entire industry a standing that it’s still, in some ways, trying to abdicate.
Every industrialized nation seems to have a similar record with offsite construction driven by early twentieth century production methods and sustained through trade organizations and government policies. Recently the industry has been tackling these connotations in an increasingly aggressive fashion as modular is envisioned as a growing field responding at once to a need for houses and to critical labor shortages in certain traditional construction trades. While modular is becoming mainstream, it's potential to compete with traditional construction both in matters of cost and quality is largely still a matter of perception and sometimes ignorance regarding its true potentials.
Britain’s Modular and Portable Building Association was founded in 1938. Like many other modular building institutes, it is a member driven lobby group that promotes modular construction through its role as an advisory body working to normalize processes and products toward a greater uptake in Off-site construction. An important initiative, part of their role in promoting quality, is the MPBA's learning hub which strives to leverage education and training to offer National Vocational Qualifications, fostering methods and strategies framed by best practices. The Diploma in Innovative Modern Methods of Construction for Modular, Portable Building addresses the need for training tradespeople with the specific knowledge required to offer quality manufactured buildings. Trade associations play an important role in educating both the consumer and the producer.
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| Link to the Learning Hub http://learninghub-mpba.biz |
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