Ricketts says local authorities were using a combination of approaches, from trawling through records (building control, planning and housing), to looking at GIS mapping, and even cycling the borough.
Our team went through a process of evaluation and analysis.We adapted and optimised the factory size and construction techniques in order to substantially and successfully reduce the cost.. Something even more interesting happened in the process, however.
As we began to evaluate the facility, we began to ask different types of questions.This led to some interesting realisations.One of the primary products to be manufactured in the factory was bottled water.
The team discovered two important things: the first was that the energy costs to manufacture the product would be high; the second was that the sale price for bottled water in Africa is low.This meant that, ultimately, the product itself was prohibitively unprofitable, and the entire venture ended up being deemed a nonviable investment.
The company decided not to build the factory at all..
In other words, in this particular case, not building was deemed the most valuable thing.Yet, from our experience, these clients have a very well-informed view on how their asset needs to perform and the layouts and designs that deliver their operational outcomes.
This knowledge and understanding lends itself to a repeatable solution that can comprise c.80% of the asset.. We call this a ‘Reference Design’: a highly optimised, site agnostic ‘core design’ for a portfolio client.Typically, a Reference Design will contain a number of repeated elements at varying scales (from key equipment to whole assets) that can be configured in a number of different ways (with more or less flexibility in how these are arranged depending on the asset type).. For some assets, the Reference Design can become the fixed design.
The house blocks we designed for the.Ministry of Justice prisons rollout.