Galion and Stonewater reap cost and time benefits of WholeHouse platform

A partnership between developer Galion and Stonewater Housing is promising to cut time and costs by using offsite construction techniques in combination with the groundbreaking WholeHouse digital design platform developed by Travis Perkins.

According to Travis Perkins, WholeHouse was conceived to revolutionise the way SME house builders plan, design and construct new homes. The platform is specifically designed for housebuilders building up to 250 units a year. By working closely with a small number of manufacturers, such as Velux, EnviroVent, Celcon and Baxi, Travis Perkins has enabled the WholeHouse process to optimise design, materials supply and logistics.

The first site to reap the benefits of the partnership is at Shiremoor Hill, Merriott in Somerset, a two-acre estate of 39 homes, seven miles from Yeovil. It is the first social housing scheme to use the WholeHouse concept.

At the site’s open day, Galion founder Angus Macdonald said the housebuilder was looking to build 1000 units in the next three to four years using the WholeHouse platform. He said:

These are the traditional homes of the future and we are building them with what are effectively Lego kits.”

He noted that by using Modern Methods of Construction, Galion could build high-quality housing association homes for Stonewater, whilst improving sustainability, quality and value. A key benefit is that this adds up to lower long term costs for the owners, he added.

Lee Jackson, Technical Director for WholeHouse by Travis Perkins added:

Innovations such as WholeHouse offer one way to cut through the challenges that are facing the SME housebuilding sector.  We currently have a skills shortage because we ask trades to do absolutely everything. This changes ‘specification’ to an accurate bill of materials. It can simplify installation and allow installers to focus on the bits they want to be doing.”

He said that it was important to note that MMC doesn’t mean restricted choice:

These are not standardised kits – over 1 billion permutations means that you can still have a huge degree of individuality. It is like choosing your car configuration from a range of quality options rather than a random choice.”

 The WholeHouse concept

Travis Perkins said simplification was a key aim of the WholeHouse concept, meaning that SME housebuilders can plan and design a bespoke digital model of a house before physically constructing it. It said:

The platform means plots and developments can be brought to life through 3D visualisation in designs that can be easily adapted, personalised and tailored depending on customer requirements. It ensures detailed and accurate design, plans and material pricing of developments from the first day. From start to finish, the process can be completed in under an hour, supplying housebuilders with an entire set of drawing sheets, up to 200 pages of construction details and a full bill of the materials needed to build a property.”

The WholeHouse process starts with creating an accurate digital twin and then using certified manufacturer partners to provide a kit of designs. Drawings are generated and made available on site on phones so that it is easy to refer back to designs at every step of installation and construction.

As many of the components are made in factories and delivered by Trais Perkins, there is less margin for error, more room for efficiency and more control over the construction process, the merchant added.

The platform reduces development risk by allowing housebuilders to create a house type from over half a billion fully coordinated, tried and tested designs, the company added. This enables builders to create costed construction drawings with accurate elevations, floor plans, specifications, cross sections, required build materials and more at the click of a button. Traditionally many of these items would need to be manually costed from drawings and separate subcontractor quotes.

Because it ensures detailed and accurate material pricing from the beginning, the platform also promotes improved sustainability by reducing material waste and providing informed choices around low carbon solutions, Travis Perkins noted, This also leads to a reduction in development costs because of the accurate and real-time pricing the portal provides.

Among the other WholeHouse benefits promised by the company are: scalability; consistency and quality throughout the design process; streamlining of subcontractor quotes to give confidence on price and specification; detailed and accurate material pricing from the outset with component prices able to be updated in real-time; reviewing of designs for compliance by expert supplier panel; and high degree of detail embedded in the models, down to elements such as the colour of brickwork, or different types of door frames or gutters.

The supplier perspective – Baxi

Travis Perkins has worked closely with a select group of suppliers, who are effectively “design partners,” helping to to shape further improvements with each WholeHouse project.

Baxi said its partnership is focused on ensuring that ‘innovative design principles and renewable energy systems work as one to optimise efficient heating performance and minimise environmental impact.’

Its renewable heating systems have been designed to fit directly into the WholeHouse model. These comprise air source heat pumps in conjunction with prefabricated utility cupboards (PUC), containing both heating and electrical consumer units. The manufacturer said that the PUC is key in that it enables faster and easier installation, which not only helps support the accelerated development of sustainable housing but also addresses skills shortages within the heating industry.

Baxi has also collaborated closely with Travis Perkins to ensure that waste-free principles are adopted during manufacturing. The manufacturer said:

The PUC is a ready-to-install solution that has been developed using MMC for reduced carbon and waste and high-quality consistency, and carefully designed to fit into the understairs space to accelerate installation time. As such, the PUC solution provides builders with instant access to plug-and-play, fully compliant low-carbon heating options. Users can also draw on Baxi’s design and engineering expertise to secure reliable, optimised performance. The MMC process reduces the overall materials used, reduces labour and cuts material waste, delivering a clear sustainability benefit in keeping with the ethos of WholeHouse. At the same time, it effectively maximises usable space within the home.”

The PUC has been designed to ensure that the solution fits with all six of the WholeHouse designs, with only minor variations required for each design. The company added:

Baxi’s solution allows housebuilders to integrate renewable heat pump systems seamlessly within efficient, repeatable housing designed to the latest sustainability standards. High-quality consistency is central to the golden thread of the WholeHouse platform. The BIM-based approach ensures detailed, accurate design, plans and material pricing from day one, removing the guesswork and iterations that typically slow early stages.”

Throughout the lifecycle, WholeHouse users can also access Baxi’s design and engineering expertise, ensuring the chosen system is correctly specified, installed and optimised for performance, efficiency and compliance, the company added.

Speaking at Shiremoor Hill, Jason Porter, Head of Baxi Packaged Solutions Operations said:

The factory creation of our prefabricated utility cupboards has cut installation time on this project to a third of the fitting time. It has reduced waste and made installation much more simple. There are just currently six versions of the PUC for simplicity, but discussions continue about continued innovations…Seeing the WholeHouse process from start to finish and now delivering for housebuilders, housing associations and home owners is incredibly rewarding.”

• Additional reporting by David Ventris-Field