Modular building as a sustainable solution

1.5° Celsius. That’s the target temperature increase defined in the Paris Agreement if irreversible climate change is still to be avoided. But the building industry continues to make a huge contribution to the threatening scenario that we will fail to achieve this target. Because we’ve spent recent years concentrating on looking for and finding solutions to just one area of construction-related emissions: red emissions. Essentially, this refers to all the energy that a building requires in order to operate – and we have it more or less under control. But what about gray emissions? The energy hidden in the building materials? Here, we have to be quite clear about the volume of energy consumed in the manufacture and use of mineral building materials, especially reinforced concrete and bricks. In industrialized countries, the real estate sector is responsible for between 34 and 38 % of total emissions, and around 70 % of these are gray emissions.

Solutions?
We must urgently rethink the design process! This is unavoidable. And, as we demonstrated in the case of red emissions, building services engineers can play a key role here. By showing architects and structural engineers the path towards this new approach. Why? Because, we already have experience of industrial prefabrication. Today, no one in the building services sector designs a generic heat pump. Everyone turns to industrial, product-specific solutions. So why not order prefabricated high-tech slabs in the same way? Modules that are provided by industrial experts in line with the architect’s wishes. Waste-free. Recyclable. Part of the closed loop. And, ideally, made from wood. It’s my fervent opinion that we should push (hybrid) timber building and, hence, modular building. Timber building, because timber is the only renewable natural resource that we have in Europe. And timber is also, contrary to the widely-held opinion in the building industry, completely harmless in terms of hygiene and far less of a “fire hazard” than some would like to think. This is demonstrated by one of the projects that we’ve most recently accompanied from the building physics and sustainability perspectives: a temporary back-up hospital, a hybrid timber building, which meets the highest-possible hygiene and fire protection standards.

Prefabricated building modules are interchangeable, recyclable, dismountable, and, hence, capable of being part of a closed loop. And modular building works best when it is integrally designed. When architects and engineers work together from day one of a project, when no one has the opportunity to think first, alone, at the expense of the others. A further key success factor for the implementation of new and innovative solutions in the building process – and, hence, for modular building – is Building Information Modeling. This integrated interaction enables architects to learn from building services engineers, who already have extensive experience of the notion of high levels of prefabrication, without having to abandon their artistic freedom. In other words, the fear that modular building could result in boring shoebox-like buildings is unfounded. Meeting this ambitious 1.5°-Celsius target won’t transport us back to the Stone Age. But we’ll have to be more responsible about how we make use of all our achievements – so that we all share the benefit. The ATP Green Deal shows us how!