The Dyson blog: The power of uncertainty: The challenging path from purpose to project

There’s work for everybody to do on this, we just need to make a home for people in the sector.

When a built asset comes to the end of its life, a construction Platforms approach is appealing because it gives us sustainable options for redeployment and reuse.Automatically knowing the provenance of a built asset allows us to get into a circular economy.

Equally, we could also take components from one asset, and then use them for a different asset type in another part of the world.This is very appealing, as reusing is even more sustainable than recycling..However, it’s worth stating that this is a huge simplification; that the true meaning of ‘circular economy’ is phenomenally complex (especially when we’re considering a 60-year plus period – how well do we believe someone in 1960 would have predicted the market in 2020?)

This is a topic in its own right that we’ll explore another time – but what we can say for now is that construction Platforms seem like a sensible way of facilitating this approach.. What are the challenges to widespread adoption of construction Platform design?.None of the challenges present in getting the industry to adopt a construction Platforms approach are technical.

The majority of objections are linked to cultural mindset factors.

These include issues like insurance warranties, intellectual property, and risk allocation in construction.He says that to get the benefits we’re seeking, all of these other aspects need to be reconciled first, and one of the things that will enable that is productisation.

It’s not really “anything to do with DfMA,” he says, or whether it's a panelised, or volumetric or Platform system.“You're miles away from that if we don't get all of these other ecosystem elements in place to support it.”.

Johnston recalls a bathroom pod project early in his own career, where the beautifully designed, millimetre-perfect pods had to be inserted into a traditionally built building.. Aiming for efficiency in such modular projects carries risk..He says that far too much time was spent fixing the gaps between the manufactured and traditional parts.