The Design and Construction of Lightweight Sustainable Housing Solutions

Download or read book The Design and Construction of Lightweight Sustainable Housing Solutions written by Richard Ian Campbell and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The design of a new, innovative, lightweight, sustainable housing solution aims to provide an alternative approach to the challenge of delivering quality affordable housing within the UK and across the world. There is a shortage of new homes being constructed; this is compounded by the challenges resulting from the recent recession and the need to provide buildings that achieve a higher level of environmental performance. A number of different home delivery approaches and technologies have attempted to solve both these problems with varying levels of success over the years. The Scottish construction industry currently benefits from a strong supply of low-grade timber and the necessary modern manufacturing facilities to create new systems to provide alternative solutions. There is an opportunity to combine existing construction technology with new modern methods of construction to provide a hybrid solution to help reduce the housing shortage problem. A review of existing structural timber systems has identified the current industry approach of utilising new modern methods from Europe which is gradually being explored by the UK construction industry. There is a real opportunity for architects and engineers to align themselves with manufacturing facilities to produce designs that optimise the most efficient use of the fabrication process, minimising waste and reducing costs and construction time. Through the use of a base design, a number of currently existing timber systems have been investigated to explore the advantages and disadvantages. The conceptual design of a compact lightweight sustainable housing unit, the LiteHouse, has been used to develop an alternative system that aims to be suitable for both the UK market and as temporary relief housing solution in the developing world. The development of a timber and ply flitch frame system provided an easily built structure that could be adapted to suit a variety of forms, different sites and locally available materials. The system was tested further through the design of a rural housing solution in collaboration with an architect and an environmental engineer. This provided the context to complete the detailed design of the Flitch Frame System (FFS), proving the viability of the structure as an alternative approach. The research aims to provide an alternative solution to home delivery, which combines traditional self-build skills with new modern methods of off-site manufacture. The system has the potential to be scalable, making it suitable for both residential and commercial projects in the UK, whilst also having the potential for adaptation as a flexible solution that can be used worldwide to help reduce the shortage of affordable quality housing.