Displaying items by tag: modular construction

Colombia: Cementos Argos has announced the launch of its new modular concrete solutions subsidiary Soluciones Modulares Argos. The company will produce precast concrete elements for use in housing and infrastructure construction. It aims to build 500 new homes in the second half 2022 and says that its products will halve building times.

Cementos Argos Colombia regional vice president Carlos Horacio Yustysaid "Modular concrete solutions revolutionise the execution of traditional structures and constitute a disruptive bet in construction systems technology."

Andrew Minson from the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) kicked off this week’s Virtual Global Concrete Conference with an overview of concrete’s role in the association’s 2050 climate ambition. The association announced in September 2020 that it was starting work on this roadmap for publication in the second half of 2021, just in time for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, currently schedule to take place in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021. Minson ran through the topic, providing an overview of concrete’s intrinsic sustainable features and the policy levers the association is considering for its forthcoming roadmap.

One point from circular economy aspects of the plan included design for dis-assembly (DfD) and long life, loose fit modes of thinking around how a building using concrete should be conceived, designed, built, used and - crucially – reused. Long life, loose fit, low energy (to use its original name) was promoted by the Welsh architect Alex Gordon from the early 1970s. It covered themes of sustainability, flexibility and energy efficiency for building design ahead of both the 1970s oil crisis and the current climate one. DfD emerged in the 1990s as a way of thinking about a building’s demolition at the start and working from there. Deconstruction or demolition is prepared for through planning and design. It allows components and materials to be removed more easily, facilitating their subsequent reuse. So, components and materials can be removed more easily allowing their subsequent reuse and elements such as columns, walls, beams, and slabs can be disassembled to facilitate this. Last year Global Cement Weekly explored a similar path with the ideas of Dutch architect and commentator Thomas Rau (GCW348) and his concept of building materials as a service, following on from the Building Information Modelling (BIM) system, and the suggestion that companies simply rent (!) building materials from their manufacturers to encourage whole life thinking.

Chart 1: Uses of concrete by European Ready Mixed Concrete Organisation (ERMCO) members in 2018. Source: ERMCO.

Just how much concrete the world uses each year is a question beyond the scope of this article, given its range of applications and diversity of users. For example, the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) estimated 25Bnt in 2009. Later, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) technical committee for concrete, reinforced concrete and pre-stressed concrete placed the figure at around 33Bnt in 2016. It is worth considering how and where concrete is actually used. The chart above from the European Ready Mixed Concrete Organisation (ERMCO) shows how its members used concrete in 2018. Note that use in buildings comprised the biggest share, nearly two thirds, but that the rest included infrastructure, pavements, roads and more. Lifecycle thinking and its various offshoots can apply to all of these applications. Yet it’s easier to imagine a concrete building shell being reused within its lifespan than, say, a bridge or a road. Concrete used in infrastructure seems more suitable for re-use further down the waste hierarchy, such as recycling as an aggregate.

A few final thoughts to consider are that both Cemex and gypsum wallboard manufacturer Etex have invested in modular and/or offsite construction companies in January 2021. Both targets were relatively small companies suggesting growing interest in these sectors by larger players. Offsite building construction suits lifecycle thinking well because the modular components start off being built elsewhere before installation. Factoring in what happens afterwards should be relatively easy and expandable at scale. Finally, LafargeHolcim announced this week that it is acquiring two ready-mix concrete and aggregate suppliers in France and Italy that will give it 35 concrete plants in the region.

Sustainability places lifecycle thinking into mainstream building practice and some methods and tools will inevitably make it into any policy framework the GCCA will recommend. Whether some or all of the ideas above hang around remains to be seen but lifecycle thinking in some form or another is here already and not going anywhere.

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UK: Cemex Ventures has invested in Modulous, a London-based company that uses a modular construction system. Modulous says it digitises its materials supply chain management to reduce costs and time and in construction process. It uses machine learning, generative design and 5D BIM modelling in its supporting software to support this. No value for Cemex Ventures’ investment in Modulous has been disclosed.

"By including Modulous in our portfolio, we offer the industry a unique offsite construction model" said Mateo Zimermmann, head of Cemex Ventures investment in Modulous. "The Modulous innovative approach enables the supply chain to deliver sustainable and high-quality homes, significantly reducing time and costs. Modulous does not require additional capital expenditure, which makes it globally scalable. This team is going to revolutionise the residential development industry.”

Modulous has secured a number of projects in the UK and Europe. It is currently preparing the delivery of a Euro7m residential scheme in London using its design and construction system that it claims will achieve completion 12 months ahead of schedule. Modulous is one of the winners of the 2020 Construction Startup Competition, the annual startup challenge organized by Cemex Ventures.