Prefabrication as a Solution for Tackling the Building Crisis in the UK

A. Shibani, Araz Agha, Thuraiya Alharasi Alharasi, Dyaa Hassan
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Abstract

The UK as a welfare state spends about 30% of the gross domestic product on social expenditures. The acute and biting shortage of housing, particularly social and affordable housing is responsible for the spiralling house prices and rents leading to an affordability crisis. Evidence-based research shows that the UK needs to build over 300,000 houses a year to meet the rising demand, particularly from young adults and families with low-to-middle incomes. As a result, there has been a worrying increase in overcrowding, homelessness, evictions and rent arrears. This research study aimed to investigate prefabrication, also known as modular construction as a solution to tackling the housing crisis in the UK. A mixed method approach was used to collect raw data. As such, five major construction firms were selected as the case study organisations for the research study. The respondents had a senior position in the organisations. The data collection methods that were adopted are qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (questionnaires). The data were analysed using thematic analysis in which emergent themes were identified throughout the interviews and the questionnaires. Findings suggested that the housing crisis is not about houses; instead, it is about individuals. Perceptions about prefabricated houses among the low, middle and high-income earners are largely negative whose implication is that individuals would rather wait to build traditional homes in the future than opt for a prefabricated home. Although traditional home ownership is slipping out of reach for the majority, the demand for prefabricated homes is still low. In urban areas, modular construction is practised on a small scale with the main market limitations being the small size of the domestic market and the existing building regulations which prohibit the use of inflammable materials in urban areas. Moreover, it was found that prefabricated homes may provide short-term and long-term solutions to the housing crisis since they address and resolve some of the most critical issues associated with traditional housing but not limited to high costs, longer construction periods and uncertain budgets.
预制作为解决英国建筑危机的解决方案
作为一个福利国家,英国将国内生产总值的30%用于社会支出。住房的严重短缺,特别是社会住房和经济适用房的严重短缺,是导致房价和租金螺旋式上涨的原因,导致了负担能力危机。基于证据的研究表明,英国每年需要建造30多万套住房,以满足不断增长的需求,特别是来自年轻人和中低收入家庭的需求。结果,令人担忧的是,过度拥挤、无家可归、驱逐和拖欠租金的情况有所增加。这项研究旨在调查预制,也被称为模块化建筑,作为解决英国住房危机的解决方案。采用混合方法收集原始数据。因此,五个主要建筑公司被选为个案研究机构进行研究。受访者在机构中担任高级职位。采用的数据收集方法为定性(访谈)和定量(问卷)。数据采用专题分析进行分析,其中在整个访谈和问卷中确定了紧急主题。调查结果表明,住房危机与房屋无关;相反,它关乎个人。低、中、高收入者对装配式房屋的看法大多是消极的,这意味着人们宁愿等待未来建造传统房屋,也不愿选择装配式房屋。尽管传统的房屋所有权正逐渐超出大多数人的承受能力,但对装配式房屋的需求仍然很低。在城市地区,模块化建筑的规模较小,主要的市场限制是国内市场规模小,现有的建筑条例禁止在城市地区使用易燃材料。此外,研究发现,预制房屋可以为住房危机提供短期和长期的解决方案,因为它们解决了与传统住房相关的一些最关键的问题,但不限于高成本、较长的建设期和不确定的预算。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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