Agenda

• How To Capitalize On New Project Opportunities From New Market Recovery
• Investing In New ConTech: Overcoming Inertia, Optimize New Opportunities
• Managing Funding And Risk Management Challenges In Modular Construction
• Sustainability Innovations And Prefabrication In The Circular Economy
• Advances In Prefabrication And Construction Tech In Australia: Moving Forward With The New Regional Prefab Innovation Hubs. Conceived by the federal government, these regional hubs support the development and growth of prefab in Australia, through increased collaboration between industry and research, support new prefab technologies and improve the prefab manufacturing ecosystem. These are aimed at increasing prefab’s market share from 5% to 15%, creating 20,000 new Australian jobs and adding $30 billion to the economy

• Why the health and the aged care sectors can benefit from modular construction innovation
• Observing COVID Safety and Design Considerations
• Key area focus emphasis on performance based design
• The repeatability, superior quality allows regulators to meet performance requirements

1. Case Study Of The $47 Million Hotel Constructed On Top Of An Existing Office Building Using CLT
2. Case Study Of The $3 Million Oakleigh Child Care Centre Showcasing How CLT Can Be Used To Achieve Design Outcomes
   • Our choice of material (CLT) & design consultants
   • Building regulations (as they relate to CLT)
   • Builder appointments and outcomes from the owner’s point of view

Data centers are the core foundation infrastructure that fuel the Tech Boom and is needed for new economic growth. Ultimately, data is what runs the world and with major impact events like Covid19, there is a natural acceleration in demand for data center services as people try to share or simply stay informed. Prefabrication can provide a quick and convenient solution to data center construction. Prefabrication reduce risk by eliminating site works and delivery delays. With a complicated data center project that has short delivery timelines, pre-engineered product packages, along with prefabricated solutions, could be the answer. As demand for data storage grows rapidly, so too is the demand for scalable and easily installed data centers.

Prefabricated elements—precast concrete and steel are now used for the cut-and-cover Sydney Metro stations—including the first-time use in Australia of precast wall elements for soil-retaining applications. Up to 80% of the main structural elements of a Sydney Northwest Metro Station are prefabricated, including 50-tonne box beams spanning up to 22 m. The main elements of the “leaf” canopies were also prefabricated and erected on site. Placing the canopies with cranes required accurate positioning to allow connection to the four supporting points situated on buttresses. Once connected to their buttresses, temporary propping was secured to allow installation of the bracing elements. The use of prefabrication for long-span trusses resulted in more than a 40% reduction in steel weight. The innovative prefabrication design at this station increased the efficiency and sustainability of the station project, both in construction and in future maintenance operations.

• Advances In Timber Materials And Technology For Prefabrication

• Modular Construction For BTR (Build-To-Rent) Projects: How Modular Construction And Offsite Pre-Fabrication Can Deliver Faster Build Rates, Higher Quality Finish For BTR, With Case Studies
• Modular Homes Made For Bushfire Areas
• New Steel And Concrete Prefab Projects & Opportunities
• Home Office Pods For WFH
• Green Steel For Modular Construction
• Advances In AS3850 Precast
• Precast Concrete Stairs Innovation
• Prefab Column Systems Innovation
• Introducing Better Quality Building Components & Products
• Exploring Airspace And Rooftop Modular Homes
• Securing The Finance And Insurance For Builders/Developers & Managing The Cash Flow
• Prefabricating The NSW’s Education Infrastructure
• Prefabricated Prefinished Volumetric Construction, PPVC
• Advanced Prefab Bathroom And Kitchen Pods
• Plumbing Prefabrication Opportunities
• Mass Timber Regulations In International Building Code
• Blockchain For Construction Practice
• Integrating Renewable Technologies (Solar & Microgrids) With Modular Green Building Design
• Advances In New Construction Materials: Bamboo, Hemp
• New Prefabrication Construction Techniques And Technologies
• 3D Printing A Smart City: New Breakthroughs
• Drones For High Rise Fire Fighting, Risk Based Integrity Inspection And Site Surveying
• Sustainable Prefab: Recycling Plastic Waste For Manufacturing Prefab Building Components

In 2020, after a brief celebration of the dawn of a new decade, an unprecedented wave of uncertainty hit the world—the coronavirus pandemic has gravely affected many lifestyles: how and where we live, work and play have been stripped down to the core and turned upside down almost overnight. Our homes have become our workplaces, exercise arenas and playgrounds. Some have found out the hard way during this pandemic about the importance of design and the value of space—poor families living in tight quarters; migrant workers staying in cramped dormitories—and what this ultimately means to curbing the spread of a virus like COVID-19. Buildings, therefore, have the potential to act as public health tools.

Case Study of a Passive House Structure with the WELL standard, the Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Primary School. The WELL Building Standard (WELL) is the first comprehensive rating system that focuses on occupant health and well-being in the built environment. In Australia, Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Primary School, a CLT rebuilt school with wellness and biophilia in mind, with asbestos removed from its old structure, is enclosed in a high-performance envelope with light, airy interiors. An educational space that elevates well-being, a vast four-storey atrium acts as the main entry via a central circulation spine, connecting all areas on the upper levels of the building with the ones on the ground floor.

• Components that improved the performance of a house that was prefabricated off-site
• The additional Narara Ecovillage’s Building Standard criteria it met
• Other high performance houses that used prefabricated components
  

In New Zealand, traditional construction companies, developers and clients are increasingly looking at ways to do things better, quicker and at a higher quality and offsite manufacturing allows them to do this. Post Covid-19 will see the New Zealand building sector continue to thrive to meet pent-up housing demand. Buoying this new industry growth prospect is the setup of Kainga Ora (the former Housing New Zealand Corporation) with its new modular projects, the new Building Act Review that will facilitate a more seamless approval of imported prefab components and institutionalise OSM, and the Government’s new Procurement Guidelines that focus on improving building construction value instead of the lowest cost.

Modular builds has high potential in New Zealand, going forward: there are a number of new projects in the pipeline that are actively looking to utilise CLT products, particularly in the Canterbury region. Red Stag timber’s new CLT plant in the North Island is now gearing up to meet this CLT demand.

Victoria will need 6000 new social housing dwellings to be built each year for the next decade to avoid a homelessness crisis. Victorian Government is investing almost $500 million to public and community housing to boost construction jobs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilising modern methods of construction such as prefabrication, efficient design and predictable construction techniques can reduce the extent of costly delays and variations prevalent with conventional build methods. Repeatable room configurations, prefabricated frames and proprietary bathrooms can remove the costs associated with regular housing solutions, such as the expensive development of site-specific layouts to give each new building its own identity. The design of permanent modular type building layouts and repetition of building elements on various sites and/or on multiple levels can deliver significant savings in construction cost and provide an achievable approach to resolving the shortage of construction in social and affordable housing. Three to four social and affordable housing developments on standard residential blocks can be completed in 2 years using modular/offsite construction, compared with one to two of the same buildings using conventional construction. Offsite constructed houses are cheaper than traditionally built homes by about 20%.

• The uptake of green infrastructure (green walls and roofs) in many towns and cities is needed to attenuate the urban heat island.
• Other social, environmental and economic benefits exist; such as provision of habitat for bio-diversity, improved thermal performance, opportunity for biophilia effect on people, improved air quality and reduced operating energy costs.
• Green walls can be retrofitted to existing buildings or incorporated into new build.
• The uptake of Green Walls has lagged and the main barriers are OH&S risks of working at heights and costs of maintenance.
• These barriers can be overcome with the adoption of Wallbot – a robot designed and testing at UTS – a collaboration of DAB and FEIT faculties. Wallbot inspects, monitors and collects data on environmental conditions and plant health.
• An extension of the initial design is the Smart Green Wall – whereby the Wallbot control system is integrated into BMS. Maintenance can be controlled and managed remotely thereby optimising performance and minimising costs and OH&S risks.
• It is possible to integrate this Smart Green Wall technology and designs into OSM design.

• Benefits of modular and prefabricated construction in solving city car parking problems
• Why there is a specific demand in the transport and infrastructure space for this type of solution
• The ability to relocate the car park or adapt it to parking demands by adding or subtracting to the structural levels
• Future applications and project opportunities

• Prefabricating Plumbing and Building Services, with case studies
• Plumbing, sewerage, drainage, vertical transportation, sanitation, heating, seepage & leakage management
• Design considerations to take into account when undertaking a prefabricated project

2. Visit to a newly constructed, first prefabricated CLT house in the Sydney area, designed to meet the PassivHaus standard. Learn how to achieve building a CLT project with improved energy efficiency and construction standards by applying the PassivHaus standard (pending COVID clearance)