As designers we at Bryden Wood believe strongly in the DfMA approach and have used it successfully on many projects to achieve considerable benefits.. We advocate for any designer of buildings to apply a DfMA approach by considering efficient construction methods to leverage the benefits of manufacturing and assembly, and design with them in mind from the earliest stage.. Getting started with DfMA is the hardest part and too big a topic to discuss in detail here but a great first step is to keep up to date with MMC innovations and think about how those innovations can be used to deliver better project outcomes.. Clients can support greater uptake of DfMA by demanding the best value project outcomes to ensure a benefit-driven approach to MMC adoption is applied on their projects.. As the MMC toolkit grows it becomes more and more powerful.
At Bryden Wood, we hope our housing design app, PRiSM, will help to form part of the solution.. Our problem as an industry is simple enough to understand; it stretches beyond residential architecture into other social infrastructure sectors as well.Traditional construction methods simply can’t meet the scale of demand for new built assets.
Not in the future.The global population is increasing rapidly, set to reach 11.5 billion by 2050.Inefficiency abounds when every building is a prototype and we start from scratch with the design and build process each and every time.
At Bryden Wood, we believe the key to solving both the housing shortage and the wider construction crisis lies in the use of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC).. Housing Design with Modern Methods of Construction.By Modern Methods of Construction, we refer to those transformative and often technologically innovative methodologies which enable rapid, safe and efficient assembly of building parts rather than traditional construction.
Tools and processes such as automation in construction, Platform Design for Manufacture and Assembly (P-DfMA), and computational design approaches can help us create a brighter future, both for the built environment and the construction industry as a whole.
Our PRiSM housing design app is just one such tool.On top of this, when studying for my Masters degree, I worked as a PAL (Peer Assisted Learning) assistant for undergraduate students.
This is a new initiative set up by Westminster, which involves older students helping teach the younger ones.I assisted in sketching workshops, tutorials, formal reviews as well as crits and certain presentations for year 1 undergraduate architecture and interior architecture students.
As a result of my experience, I have on two occasions since graduating been asked to help out at crits as part of the panel.I really enjoy the experience and am very grateful to be given the opportunity to attend.