Award winner for best innovative technology
Modular homes
This recently completed development demonstrates the direction that housing must take if it is to produce new homes more quickly and with fewer defects. MoHo is the first development of modular housing built for private sale in the UK, with 102 apartments that are claimed to combine the best in modern architecture with the latest construction techniques.
Modular construction is not a new concept: the Georgians built their standardised houses using architectural pattern books, but the difference today is that the parts are precision made in a factory under controlled conditions. Timberframed construction has been used in Britain since the 1920s, and now accounts for 14 per cent of new homes, but it has been largely limited to houses.
Industralised system building in the 1960s came to an abrupt halt with the partial collapse in 1968 of Ronan Point, a 22- storey tower block in Canning Town. Since then, although modern methods of construction are now widely used for non-residential buildings such as hotels, shops, offices and factories, they remain unpopular in the housing industry largely because of the stigma attached to the word “prefab,” which conjures up visions of the thousands of lowcost homes built after the Second World War to solve the housing crisis.
So Urban Splash has taken a bold step with MoHo, and it is fitting that its architects, shedkm, have their offices in Bold Street, Liverpool. The difference with MoHo is that it has not just used factory-made components: it has had complete apartments built off-site in carefully controlled conditions, with everything snagged and fully tested before it arrived on site, where each unit was craned into position and attached to the steel-framed skeleton of the six-storey building.
Every apartment arrived from Yorkon’s factory in York with all internal fixtures and fittings in place, including bathrooms and kitchens, heating and lighting, timber floors, louvered screens and all doors and windows fully glazed. Every apartment has a balcony, and the larger ones have a glazed “dining pod” with balconies on either side. Each apartment also came with a range of Italian designer furniture chosen to complement the spaces.
There are three apartment types, each based around the same basic module, with a fully fitted kitchen and bathroom core that sits in the centre of the apartment, with the living space and bedrooms on either side. Sliding doors separate the open-plan rooms and provide privacy when needed. Shelves, storage spaces and even a desk or dressing table are located behind sliding doors, which gives the apartments an
uncluttered modern look.
As Tom Bloxham, chairman of Urban Splash, explains: “You wouldn’t buy a car if it had been built in someone’s back yard in the rain, and yet for centuries home building has remained basically the same, with one brick joined by wet cement onto another brick. Builders battle against weather conditions [but] these factors are taken away in the factory.
It allows for a quicker build time and reduces problems in the finished apartments as we strive towards zero defects.” Every MoHo apartment comes with a ten-year new building guarantee from Zurich Insurance, and the apartments are competitively priced from £139,000 for a one-bedroom up to £200,000 for the two-bedroom with the extra dining pod.
The apartments are undeniably of high quality, and the development offers private parking spaces (at an extra price) and landscaped gardens in the central courtyard. There is always resistance to new ideas, but let’s hope this one works. So far, Urban Splash’s track record in Castlefield suggests it will.
HomeBuilder: URBAN SPLASH LIMITED
Timber Wharf, 16-22 Worsley Street, Manchester M15 4LD
Tel 0161 839 2999 Fax 0161 839 8999
Contact: Lisa Ashurst, Communications Manager
Email: lisaashurst@urbansplash.co.uk
Website: www.urbansplash.co.uk
Architects: shedkm
61a Bold Street, Liverpool L1 4EZ
Tel 0151 709 8211 Fax 0151 708 8226
Email: design@shedkm.co.uk
Website: www.shedkm.co.uk
Photography: RICHARD COOPER OF PHOTOFLEX (0151 207 5156)
JASON LOCK (0161 431 4012) and JOEL CHESTER FILDES (07970 631160)