We adapted and optimised the factory size and construction techniques in order to substantially and successfully reduce the cost.. Something even more interesting happened in the process, however.

for a healthcare facility the design needs to be flexible to accommodate specific clinical specialisms and the demographics of a particular region..So how can a Reference Design both standardise a design, yet leave enough flexibility to adapt it to any given brief?.

Designing flexible Reference Designs.In Reference Design, we create a core design of the most common of our clients’ facility type using a process of rationalisation, optimisation and standardisation.At the same time, we attach a planned strategy for increasing or decreasing scale and content and how to flex to suit local conditions e.g.

scale up or down to hit a particular brief.rearrange or reconfigure to suit site constraints and layout.

choose between a ‘seismic’ or ‘non-seismic’ version.

choose between key suppliers for major equipment or specific materials required by fire codes etc.. We achieve this level of flexibility by thinking about the asset and the design in terms of ‘Chips’.Currently, fund managers are focusing more on internal building technology.

This results from a desire to achieve a better return on investment, and a focus on short-term impact over long-term benefits.While this type of technology might seem more exciting in some respects, it isn’t necessarily as truly valuable as the data sets we could be unlocking from construction if we approached things differently and looked at other ways of using construction technology to consistently gather beneficial information from our construction sites.

asBuilt’s platform Vault presents a good example of how powerful things become when we can actually visualise what’s happening.. IoT can also be helpful for construction site managers, enabling them to easily track and keep record of information which might ultimately save them time or produce other benefits.Lamont recalls an incident whereby a local council reported a noise complaint early in the morning, thought to be caused by the construction site operating outside of consented hours.