Essays and Blog
Modern Methods of Construction - Norfolk House, April 2011
While on site the other day I was given an alternative take on prefabricated timber framing by a small regional main contractor. We had designed a one off house for clients on the Norfolk Coast, intended as a second home for a family who have strong ties with the area. The architectural scheme is a real gem, and with a modest budget, it was important for us the develop a structural scheme that gave an appropriate response to the design, and the likely skill base of the region’s general contractors.
We opted for a timber structure, with a small amount of steel framing to form the roof volumes, and went to tender with a simple stud and joist framing system - to call it a ‘balloon frame’ would be too grand a description. The successful tenderer then appointed a prefabricated timber frame housing specialist, who then spent the next eight weeks badly producing drawings of a ‘flat pack’ cassette floor and wall panel system design, using our original structural sizes. Our initial response was to suggest that such methods were an overkill and perhaps inappropriate for such a modest project with hardly any repetition. Undaunted, the timber frame contractor carried on re-issuing fabrication drawings for approval - some at revision E by the time he had finished.
Twelve weeks after the initial subcontract was let, I went up to site to view the completed structure. As expected, the methods of the timber frame contractor had produced a structure that was generally as designed, but with some key omissions and errors, created largely by a lack of communication between their drawing office and the rest of the universe. As I walked around the site with the owner of the main contracting company, noting down all of the errors and workmanship issues, he seemed relaxed and in good humour about things. He then told me that he had worked through this method of construction before, and was expecting the sorts of problems I encountered; butt joints in timber lintels at mid span instead of supports, butt joints in wall plates mid panel that were supposed to be continuous, joists spanning the wrong direction, etc. and so on.
“OK”’ I said, “Why are you so relaxed about all this?”. “They always do this”, he replied, “but I’ve got some proper joiners who will come over and sort this out in a couple of days.” “This lot are so cheap, I can afford to get them in to throw the structure up, and then get my boys to rebuild it properly, and still be quids in.”. Interesting, but not exactly what the great and the good had in mind when they promoted the Modern Methods of Construction agenda. I don’t see many people buying cars and the finishing them off themselves - although if a car off the line was £8k cheaper than a ‘finished’ model that might be a different thing altogether?
What we have here is almost post industrial in its thinking. A timber frame industry that has, on the face of it, gone too far down the ‘stack em high, sell em cheap road’, and who is now so desperate for work, they are tackling inappropriate projects. They are then being used as semi skilled labour, by clever local contractors. Is this the dinosaur and the mammal interacting?
Whether this is just a sign of the current economic times, and therefore people taking advantage of the particular moment in the economic cycle, or whether this has been going on for some time, I cannot say. I am sure that the lack of real time pressure on the main contractor, and the scale of the building, and so the likely snagging, have had a strong influence. However, what is does demonstrate is the resilience, the intelligence, and the flexibility of the construction industry; something that Egan, et al, have failed to understand and utilise, and something that those on the inside of the industry take for granted.
