Economic rehabilitation through the production of modular housing and education

The last year that the UK reached it’s annual housing targets was in 1977, because of the lack of housing supply house prices have increased drastically making it extremely difficult for young adults to purchase a home. Modular volumetric construction provides a cheaper and quicker alternative to traditional construction methods, pairing this with modern materials such as hempcrete I believe there is a viable solution to this issue.

My proposal for a modular home production factory as well as educational facility looks to help provide economic stability for Weston-super-Mare in 3 ways: Providing education for the young generation of Weston, creating an estimated 500 new jobs and the production of affordable housing for Weston and the surrounding area. In addition to this the building can be used as an events space for music, weddings or gatherings. The project consists of 3 buildings although focuses on the design of the main building: an initial warehouse where locally sourced hemp and other construction materials are processed, the main building where the production and education takes place and finally a finished module storage warehouse.

The main building is 5 storeys in total, the ground floor housing the assembly area as well as a café/bar, the first to third floor primarily houses workshops for part manufacturing for the house modules and the top floor consists of office space and classrooms, the top floor consists of steel structure with services in the area between beams. The building itself is made from a glulam structure with CLT cores around the service elevators and stairs located in opposite corners of the building with large steel beams and trusses above supporting a roof crane.

The exterior of the building is made of modular hempcrete panels covered with angled corrugated hemp panels that provides shading for the windows of the floor below. The interior of the building is all exposed hemp panels and timber floor joists left exposed so that the building can be utilised as an educational tool for the students that use it.