Modular Housing
In recent years, Laing O’Rourke have embarked on revolutionising residential construction by developing it’s Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) to deliver factory produced housing units ready for onsite assembly.
In recent years, Laing O’Rourke have embarked on revolutionising residential construction by developing it’s Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) to deliver factory produced housing units ready for onsite assembly.
In 2017 FIRMA were approached by Laing O’Rourke (LOR) to assist in the design and research phase of their modular housing system. Our primary roles on this project were to liaise between the design team and suppliers to create a GD&T scheme that worked. In addition to this we provided technical drawings for the designed elements.
The housing modules were envisioned to be almost entirely manufactured offsite with very little onsite work required. This required detailed and novel design solutions to ensure that facias and fixings aligned.
The manufacture of the modules would be automated, with 2D and 3D assembly stations utilised to create the final housing module.
LOR wanted a high degree of variability in the modules and FIRMA worked to create computer programs which would auto generate stud positioning and board placement. FIRMA also utilised automation within SolidWorks to auto generate bespoke parts to allow for high variability.