investment decisions would need to be made to ensure product supply did not fall behind the demand..
A clear and universally understood definition framework would help increase stakeholder awareness and confidence in adopting innovative construction methods and could help encourage a more structured and focused conversation across the industry at large..The minefield of different terms means there is a tendency to assume that the landscape is complicated but there really is a simple relationship between all these different elements and it starts with DfMA.. DfMA is a design approach.
The clue is in the name.“Design for Manufacture and Assembly” is a design approach.Conventional design either has a presumption towards conventional construction or is agnostic regarding the construction method.
Conversely, a DfMA design is developed to be constructed in a particular way..When designing for manufacture and assembly, the designer must find the best way to meet the client’s requirements by considering the most efficient way to manufacture elements of the building and the most efficient way to assemble them on site.
Manufacturing and assembly processes can be carried out in off-site or near-site factories and consolidation centres and also within the site itself.. DfMA means the designer needs to consider the construction methods that will be used from early in a project.
Furthermore, to construct a building that has been designed using DfMA the builder needs to understand the basis of the design and how it has informed the construction approach.Whilst these four bodies have been essential in pushing the agenda for low carbon, there has been some confusion across the industry due to the misalignment of targets and WLCA scopes between them as demonstrated in Figure 3.
LETI has been working in collaboration with other bodies and industry groups to resolve these inconsistencies and have published the ‘Embodied carbon target alignment document’.. Based on this document and the comparison of the current targets defined by LETI, RIBA and GLA, an average performance for non-domestic commercial building performance (A-C) would be to achieve an embodied carbon around 1400kgCO./m², good practice would be below 970kgCO.
and best practice below 550kgCO.This lower threshold is only achievable by refurbished buildings and timber structures that account for carbon sequestration and design with ambitious low carbon specifications.. Bryden Wood aspires to design new buildings that achieve at least the good practice thresholds shown in Figure 4 and where feasible deliver best practice performance.