What I find interesting.
For example, floor-to-floor heights are relatively standard across a variety of different buildings: schools, hospital wards, apartment buildings and certain office types.This is because the heights result from the size of people, rather than being necessitated by the requirements of a particular sector.
We allow for the height of a person, plus headroom, plus a zone for structures, M&E systems and architectural finishes.Recognising this reality, platform construction (P-DfMA) was Bryden Wood’s attempt to identify these types of cross-sector commonalities and develop a kit of parts which could then be used to build a variety of different sector types, but using the same components.This allows the application of manufacturing techniques and processes, with consistent quality achieved, as well as facilitating greater economies of scale..
The manufacturing industry has long enjoyed the benefits of this design to value approach.At BMW and Volkswagen a common car chassis is used across all models.
It’s the finer details that change from car to car - the wheels, trim, engine, bodywork… Similarly, Ikea use a limited kit of components to create their various pieces of furniture.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re making a bed, wardrobe or bookcase, most of the connecting pieces are the same.Construction and the wider built environment will miss out.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.We took SEISMIC, our school design app, to a primary school in Hackney.
This digitally intuitive generation of Minecraft players already have many of the skills we need.They were excited by the app.