Future Construction in Ireland: The Case for MMC
Ireland is facing a significant shortage of houses. The high demand for homes is leading to problems like a higher number of evictions, high rents and homelessness. In fact, homelessness has nearly quadrupled in the last five years, according to the Irish government.
Dublin is also on the list of the top 10 most expensive places to rent, according to Deutsche Bank Research from May 2019. Unfortunately, this combined with lagging new construction due to high building cost, tight mortgage lending and lower availability of land for development is leading to a shortage in housing.
A change needs to come about to fix this problem. An estimated 35,000 homes need to be built every year for the next decade to bridge the gap between the supply and demand. Does MMC offer a practical solution for Future Construction in Ireland?
MMC & Offsite Construction to Boost Productivity for Future Construction In Ireland
Modern Methods of Construction using technology achieves well-designed and quality buildings while saving costs and maintaining high standards.In the short term, the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland believes the following will help against the existing problem:
- Encouragement of communities to live in areas where infrastructure exists and where expansion can happen sustainably.
- Increasing land availability and a balance between the units for sale vs rent.
- Flats over shops can be used as residential set-ups, thus re-using existing land while enhancing sustainability and speedy delivery through MMC.
Technology could be the answer to deliver efficiencies within the construction sector. Modular construction could equate to a value of €1.7Bn in Ireland and put them in the position to meet domestic housing demands properly.
Advantages of MMC
- Modular buildings can be disassembled, and each module can be re-used. This reduces the demand for raw materials, minimising the amount of energy used and also re-uses existing materials to the best use.
- Waste can be eliminated through recycling and protecting building materials.
- Saves 30-50% of traditional construction time since the construction of modular buildings takes place off-site at the same time as the structural construction.
- Since most of the construction occurs indoors within factories, lousy weather conditions do not delay work.
- Modular builds reduced the rate of human error in the technical processes and cut down on labour hours. This also means fewer accidents.
- More sustainable and environmentally friendly.
- There are more options for designs. Modular units can be designed to fit the external aesthetics of any existing building and modular units.
It certainly seems that MMC is a key cog in fixing the supply of housing, especially following the Covid-19 pandemic which caused the need of much more social distancing, less site labour and the need for efficiency.
To learn more about embracing MMC or the Irish market, you recommend you join Resibuild events which give a broad overview for the industry as well as geographical updates.
