Wall-climbing robots, food waste concrete and firestop solutions amongst ideas shortlisted for construction innovation competition

Ideas to improve the built environment have been received from across the world for the 2022 COINS Grand Challenge, a global competition organised by Construction Industry Solutions Ltd (COINS) to encourage innovation in the construction sector. www.coins-grandchallenge.com

This year’s shortlist has now been announced, with finalists hailing from Estonia, US, UK, Macedonia, Switzerland, New Zealand, Malaysia and Ghana.

The challenge has two entry categories, professional (Open Competition) or student (Undergraduate Competition), with shortlisted ideas ranging from wall-climbing robots and technologies to optimise building circularity to passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC) materials.

Open Competition finalists are:

• Jack Cornes, a co-founder of UK company HausBots, with a wall-climbing robot designed for the inspection and maintenance of the built environment. This will increase safety, reduce cost and speed up work at height.
• Estonia based Tarvo Kärgenberg with click-on Solarstone, a pioneering design which transforms standard PV panels into a 2 in 1 weatherproof roofing material.
• US construction life safety consultant Sharron Halpert with bespoke firestop solutions for mass timber construction.
• Isabelle Gough, with London-based Cercula, an automated access point for construction carbon data.
• Kristijan Nelkovski of North Macedonia, with a system for fast energy-efficient modular construction.
• Australian based Peter Neil, with ZEBE, a sustainable high-performance building system, driven by digital manufacturing technology.

Student Competition finalists are

• Edwin Nsoh Awariyah, a student at Ashesi University in Ghana, with a safer, melamine-free alternative for waterproofing concrete.
• Nathan Chen from New Zealand, currently studying at the University of Pennsylvania, US, with an idea for ‘Passive Daytime Radiative Cooling’ (PDRC) materials which are designed to cool urban spaces without excess energy consumption or emission of harmful chemicals.
• Subarna Sivashanmugam, a student at Teesside University, UK, with a digital platform to optimise building circularity through semantic integration of BIM and LCA databases, enabling the supply chain to measure and manage life-cycle emissions.
• Malaysian student, Lai Jun Tung, with an idea for food waste interlocking concrete with cladding.

Robert Brown, CEO of COINS, who has played a major role in the COINS Grand Challenge since its inception in 2015, comments: “It’s great see such a wide variety of ideas aiming to improve construction sustainability, efficiency and safety shortlisted for this year’s COINS Grand Challenge. We are very proud to see the challenge go from strength to strength and hope that all the finalists go on to pursue a career in construction whether they win the competition or not.” 

The final judging will take place on 11 October 2022 in Birmingham (UK), when the finalists will present their idea to a panel of judges influential in the construction industry, including:

Nicola Barclay MRTPI FRSA / HOUSING EXPERT

Stuart Binstock /PRESIDENT AND CEO – CONSTRUCTION FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION (CFMA)

Oliver Novakovic / TECHNICAL & INNOVATION DIRECTOR – BARRATT PLC GROUP

Katie Tamblin / CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER – ACHILLES INFORMATION LTD

Neil Pike / HEAD OF BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT – OVERBURY PLC

Dr. Neha Gopinath / ASSOCIATE LECTURER IN MANAGEMENT – UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS

Jon Murrell / MANAGING DIRECTOR – CS ACCELERATE

Lee Chadwick / CEO – SPOTLER GROUP

The COINS Grand Challenge finalists have the opportunity to be awarded up to £100k in prizes, which are:

• Winner Open Competition £5,000 (sponsored by Barratt Developments Plc)
• Winner Student / Undergraduate Competition £2,500 (sponsored by Single Point Solutions)
• Runner Up Open Competition £2,000 (sponsored by COINS)
• Runner Up Student / Undergraduate Competition £1,000 (sponsored by Henley Information Systems)
• COINS Investment Prize – an investment of up to £100,000
• COINS Software Innovation Prize – internship and work experience opportunities

For more details visit www.coins-grandchallenge.com

NyRock® Rainscreen 032 and Frame Slab 032 are manufactured using the UK’s most thermally efficient stone wool insulation enabling thinner wall constructions

ROCKWOOL has launched NyRock^® Rainscreen 032 and Frame Slab 032, the first in a series of products that use NyRock technology, a patented production process that delivers the lowest lambda stone wool insulation available in the UK.

NyRock Rainscreen 032 is specifically developed for ventilated cladding systems and sealed structures such as curtain walling. It combines a low thermal conductivity of 0.032 W/mK and a non-combustible Euroclass A1 rating along with independently tested acoustic performance and the potential for thinner wall constructions.

Manufactured using patented technology, NyRock Rainscreen 032 has a more efficient fibre structure than traditional stone wool products, resulting in improved thermal properties. This fibre structure also helps to lessen the transfer of airborne noise, with NyRock Rainscreen 032 achieving a sound reduction index of up to Rw 60 dB when assessed as part of a typical system in independent in-situ laboratory testing.

Created for straightforward installation as well as ongoing performance, the product can be easily fitted around brackets and other challenging details, with slabs designed to ‘knit together’ when tightly butted providing a continuous insulating layer that reduces thermal bridging.

For optimum thermal performance in framed structures, NyRock Rainscreen Slab 032 should be combined with NyRock Frame Slab 032, a further new addition to the NyRock range, that is purpose designed for fitting between the studwork of external timber or light gauge steel frame walls.

Combined, NyRock Rainscreen 032 and Frame Slab 032 enable U-values to be met with a thinner wall construction versus standard stone wool solutions.

Paul Barrett, Head of Product Management at ROCKWOOL explains: “When working to a U-value of 0.18 W/m²K, specifiers can typically save around 15mm on the wall thickness compared to traditional stone wool products. Applying that saving over a 22m x 22m building of nine storeys, for example, it can yield an extra 99 square feet of usable or profitable floor space^[1].

“The balance between building performance, sustainability and commerciality is a constant challenge for specifiers and building owners. Our NyRock range has been created understanding those pressures, hence deliver lower lambda for thinner walls, while also providing the additional benefits of stone wool including non-combustibility.”

Like its rainscreen counterpart, NyRock Frame Slab 032 can withstand temperatures in excess of 1000°C, achieving the highest Euroclass A1 non-combustible reaction to fire classification.

As well as suited to ventilated façade systems, NyRock Frame Slab 032 can be used in a variety of external timber or steel frame applications, including with a brick outer and with or without a service void. NyRock Frame Slab 032 is available in 570mm widths for timber or 600mm for steel ensuring quick, easy friction fitting into frame walls. Its strong dimensional stability when fitted under compression also accommodates building movement, without slumping and sagging, or a loss in thermal performance^[2].

All ROCKWOOL stone wool insulation comprising NyRock technology provides water resistance plus can be recycled indefinitely. Stone wool insulation is manufactured from naturally occurring volcanic rock that is abundant in supply as it is continually replenished by the earth’s crust.

CLICK HERE

For more details on NyRock Rainscreen 032 and Frame Slab 032,

including datasheets.

[1] Based on 22m x 22m building with nine storeys and allowing for 20% load factor

[2] FIW (German test and research institute), Durability Project Mineral Wool, 2016

August 2022: Clear Safety, providers of safety, compliance and risk management consultancy, has successfully completed the stringent assessment process to join the prestigious BAFE SP205 Scheme for organisations that undertake Life Safety Fire Risk Assessments.

Clear enjoys an excellent reputation for its comprehensive range of fire safety services, spanning dedicated fire risk assessments and oversight of the completion of remedial works to satisfactory standards. The business is now approved to join the ranks of the elite by holding the Third Party Certificated BAFE Registered Companies accreditation which is acknowledged as the gold standard for fire safety risk assessment organisations.

Commenting on the certification, Director Stuart Letley said, “We are delighted to be recognised by BAFE, the lead body responsible for producing measurable criteria to enable organisations to demonstrate their competency to deliver specific fire safety services.  The BAFE Fire Safety Register is widely regarded as the go-to for companies looking to appoint a suitably qualified and competent practitioner and BAFE certification is becoming an increasingly mandatory requisite in tender applications. As our role centres around the delivery of compliance related guidance, it is obviously important for Clear to underpin its credibility by demonstrating the company’s independently proven proficiency in its specific areas of expertise.”

By Vicky Spratt

After a spate of police raids due to drugs and anti-social behaviour, it seemed one suburb of Grimsby was doomed. A community group turned socially conscious ethical landlord has rejuvenated the area and made it into a community once again.

East Marsh is a suburb of Grimsby in north east Lincolnshire which has often made headlines for the wrong reasons. In 2017, there were police raids due to drugs and anti-social behaviour. Then, in 2019, flashing blue lights of police vans lit up Oxford Street, Rutland Street and Stanley Street as officers tried to contain unrest which resulted in confrontations between locals and police.

It was these problems which prompted local man, 62-year-old Billy Dasein – who grew up in East Marsh and still lives there today – to take action.

“A community meeting was held,” he explains “and I wasn’t going to go but then my neighbour said, ‘our mums would have gone’ so I did, and that’s when I found myself speaking up.” It cemented his decision to continue the work of the community group he co-founded in 2017 – East Marsh United.

The name was deliberately chosen because it sounds like a local football team and is a world away from the “levelling up” jargon often used in political discourse. It began as a weekly meeting of local people who took on social problems such as litter and fly tipping.

Five years on, they have become a socially conscious ethical landlord. The group has begun to raise investment to buy up dilapidated homes in the area, renovate them and rent them out to people at an affordable rate which is tied to the Local Housing Allowance (the mechanism through which housing benefit is calculated). So far, they have three properties and are hoping to expand imminently.

Poor housing is rife in East Marsh and in this part of England overall; there are more than 50,000 households living in energy inefficient homes in north east Lincolnshire which means not only that poor insulation is causing mould and damp but that energy bills are high.

Walking around Rutland Street with Pete Rowley – who runs the ethical building firm, East Marsh Construction, which works closely with East Marsh United aims to employ local people on fair wages to work on homes which need doing up – it is easy to spot the homes which have been renovated.

Peter Rowley, East Marsh Construction

 

“We put a new roof on that one,” Mr Rowley points to a terraced house. “When we were brought in, it was owned by a private landlord and there were six children living there. There was damp everywhere, running down the walls.”

“We’ve been deliberately focusing on the very worst homes, some of which have been boarded up for eight or nine years,” Mr Rowley adds as we walk around. “A big problem here is that landlords from out of town have bought up ‘cheap’ properties as investments which, sometimes, they’ve never seen and they don’t care about the condition of them as long as they get their rent.”

 

The local Reverend Kay Jones, who is also involved with East Marsh United, confirms the scale of the problem. She said: “I’ve been to one house where the floorboards were rotten and you had to jump over a hole to get in. These people have no choice, they take that house or they’re homeless.”

“East Marsh United,” Revd Jones adds, “is a response to a community that has never had a voice for itself.”

It wasn’t always like this. Grimsby itself, including the area of East Marsh, was once a thriving community. Mr Rowley is something of a historian in his spare time and explains that the terraced homes here are built on top of marshland which was drained to build homes for rail workers in the 1800s. After that, they were home to the families of deep sea trawler workers when Grimsby was one of the biggest fishing docks in the world.

“There was work,” Mr Dasein says of his community’s past. “It wasn’t well-paid and I suppose you’d call it ‘zero hours’ today but you could walk out of one job and into another easily. There were opportunities here.”

Today, though, according to the local council’s Director of Public Health’s annual report, East Marsh is in the top 1 per cent of most deprived wards in England. And, earlier this year, there were three people chasing every job vacancy.

The contemporary challenges faced by the people of Grimsby – caused by the decline of the town’s fishing industry following the 70s Cod Wars and a lack of investment for essential infrastructure such as roads – are often highlighted by politicians. In the last year former Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and his shadow Levelling Up secretary Lisa Nandy have all paid flying visits – but the need for decent housing is rarely mentioned.

The group’s focus on homes, then, is no accident. Mr Dasein, Mr Rowley, Revd Jones and their colleague local architect 59-year-old Mark Hodson, are all sceptical about the government’s “Levelling Up” agenda.

Mark Hodson, Local Architect

 

“There’s a lot of jargon that gets used after people come to East Marsh,” Mr Hodson, who was born on the East Marsh Estate and grew up locally, says, “but safe housing and finding somewhere decent to live needs to be a key aspect of any “levelling up” agenda.”

“It was almost inevitable that something like the riots in 2017 happened,” Mr Hodson says when we meet at the Shalom Community Centre with Mr Rowley. “We needed an organisation like East Marsh United to take back some form of control. We needed to directly respond to absent landlords who don’t care about their properties or the tenants in them.”

Mr Dasein agrees. “I joke that people talk about the community at East Marsh as though we’re from another planet – East Martians,” he jokes. “But people here need the same basic things as people everywhere.”

“I talk about the ‘broken window theory’ a lot,” adds Mr Dasein. The premise of this idea, which came to prominence in sociology in the 1980s, is simple: if left unattended, seemingly small issues like broken windows, litter or boarded up homes contribute to an overall sense of disorder and disenfranchisement in a community.

“If you don’t look after the smaller infractions on a street then it’s going to escalate to bigger things because it says, ‘nobody cares, there is nobody looking after our place’,” Mr Dasein explains. “It’s all about that little word that means so much – home.”

“We are not buying houses as an investment tool which is how they’ve been treated here and in other places unfortunately,” Mr Dasein continues. “We’re buying them to be homes for our people.”

Before I leave East Marsh, I bump into a young man – Terry – and his partner who are currently renting their home from East Marsh United.

He smiles enthusiastically when I ask him what living in one of their properties is like:

“They’re absolutely brilliant. If something needs to be done, they do it. They’re not one of these landlords who are afraid to spend money. They respect their tenants. They’re not jumping down your throat if you’re going to be a few days late on the rent. They work with you.”

As politicians in Westminster grapple with regional inequality, talk of “levelling up” is the latest in a long line of buzzwords from former Conservative chancellor George Osborne’s “Northern Powerhouse” to media commentators’ use of the “Left Behind” to describe people from places such as Grimsby who voted to leave the European Union. But East Marsh United wants to keep things simple.

East Marsh United’s vision is “a hundred houses for a hundred years”. This would create a sustainable revenue stream via rental income to keep the organisation going. As things stand, they have raised half of the £500,000 they need in a community share offer to fund another 10 homes. For every £100,000 invested, the chairman of Grimsby Town FC Jason Stockwood has pledged to invest £10,000.

They could well be onto something. Recent analysis by Pro Bono Economics has shown that the presence of community assets – that is, things which are for and owned by local people – might be a better predictor of life satisfaction in an area than its GDP or average household income.

There is a photograph that Mr Dasein likes to show when he is giving presentations about East Marsh United’s work: it shows him on the doorstep of his family home as a baby.

“There’s no litter in the photo and you can see that people have put plant pots outside their homes on the pavement, but this is something that you just could not do today because they’d be trashed,” Mr Dasein says. “People just want a nice house, nice neighbours and enough money to get by. That’s the point.”

Source: I news

Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) is increasingly recognised as a key solution to solving the UK’s housing crisis. Clive Feeney, LHC’s Interim Group Director, explains why.

In recent years MMC has carved a place in government policy, with Homes England placing it at the forefront of future housing development.
Dwellings built using these methods have great powers to expedite the levelling up agenda, thanks to speedy construction, use of low carbon building materials and methods, and the energy efficient, cheaper-to-heat homes produced.
The Homes England Affordable Homes programme mandates that 25% of new homes will be constructed using MMC, while the MMC taskforce, set up in early 2021, was allocated £10m funding to accelerate the adoption of offsite methods. This recognition of the value of MMC in homebuilding projects, coupled with investment to accelerate the adoption of offsite methods, is extremely welcome.

Fulfilling demand

Quality housing should be attainable for all UK citizens. But with more than one million people on social housing waiting lists, it is more important than ever to speed up the delivery of new homes to meet this demand.
A major benefit of using MMC is that not only is it possible to create better quality homes for people, but to build them more quickly than would be possible using traditional construction methods.
As is well-known, MMC-built homes are assembled in factory environments, allowing for more rigorous quality control. They are more energy efficient than traditional brick builds, with better insulation and designs created with sustainability and efficiency integral to them. Not only is this good for the environment and vital to helping us all reduce carbon emissions, but it is also significant in managing household utility spending – a crucial element in levelling up and in lessening the blow of rocketing energy bills.
One of the barriers to MMC being used in greater numbers has so far been the inability to scale up developments. But there may now be the catalyst, thanks to increasing routes to procure MMC through construction frameworks, together with July’s announcement from 2021-formed trade body, Make Modular, that it could reach 15,000 homes a year by 2024. This is in part due to a £500m investment in factory facilities since 2016 from its members, which include Ilke Homes, TopHat, Laing O’Rourke and Legal & General Modular Homes.

Reluctance to adopt

One of the key stumbling blocks is a hesitancy on the part of the social housing sector to adopt MMC until it becomes a tried and tested approach. Many registered providers would rather let the big commercial players make the mistakes from which smaller providers can learn, but can’t afford to make. This is an understandable but unfortunate impediment to progress which will no doubt be overcome in time as evidence of its benefits becomes clearer and it is recognised as a safe, progressive and cost-effective approach to housebuilding.
There is also an educational component to encouraging the adoption of MMC as standard. Requiring a significant shift in the way our homes are designed, procured and delivered, MMC is arguably the single biggest change to housing construction in many decades. The case is clear, but there’s much work to do to improve confidence in the sector and begin to see a wholehearted acceptance of MMC as the norm.

A brighter future

LHC has already supported the creation of more than 5,300 MMC-built social homes and with extra support provided by government, it is likely we will see more widespread uptake for the delivery of affordable homes built using MMC in the short term.
What will certainly help to drive the use of MMC is an aggregation of projects from housing providers across the country to allow greater standardisation in the supply chain. This means delivery can be quicker and cheaper, while facilitating the production of buildings of a higher quality.
At LHC we have already started on this journey and are connecting social housing providers across the UK and encouraging a constructive culture of collaboration. We are focused on identifying areas in which providers can aggregate and seek to approach their projects using MMC together, while sharing the burden of risk.
This approach has the potential to help scale the MMC market more quickly, enabling us to help UK residents reap the many benefits that a comfortable, safe home brings. It is also a vital ingredient in supporting the government’s levelling up agenda and addressing the inequality that has long surrounded our housing sector.

Article by Clive Feeney,

Interim Group Director at LHC Group

www.lhc.gov.uk

THE SUMMER ISSUE OF MMC MAGAZINE IS NOW AVAILABLE TO READ ONLINE