General Assembly

Industry experts in off-site construction talk to Lauren Hills, Selin Arkut and Matt Warnock about the exceptional potential of prefabricated pods and precast materials

In order to take the lead in an industry, especially during exceptional times, it’s important to work smart as well as work hard. While it would be ingenuous to suggest that current market conditions are ideal or even desirable, it is true that, when the going gets tough, the tough get creative and many companies find more effective or cheaper solutions that serve them well going forward.

While other issues and requirements are, of course, at play, when it comes to the development industry, developers want to know three things: can new techniques produce the same results cheaper, faster or easier? It’s the fact that off-site construction provides a categorical ‘yes’ to all of these that makes it one of the most exciting new techniques that developers have seen in years.

But just how far can off-site construction go? Factories across the Middle East are already churning out thousands of prefab pods and precast concrete slabs, but will the day soon come when entire tower blocks and sprawling developments are manufactured and assembled on-site like Lego, and what does this mean for traditional construction?

Mike Usher, sales and marketing director at Unipods

The benefits of prefabricated or off-site construction are actually particularly suited to this region and I genuinely think that there will be a growth in prefab bathrooms in the Middle East over the coming months. In a market which is seeing some sort of a down-turn with significant correction, the speed of projects moving forward will be absolutely critical; cost saving will be even more crucial in the future, plus the quality of pods is so much better than that of standard bathrooms.

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When the traditional bathroom is installed, for example, there are numerous different labourers involved. The product has to be delivered – in its separate elements – on-site and the product can get damaged on-site too. The quality of the labour might not be good enough and the tiling, the grouting and the fitting of the accessories are very unlikely to be absolutely consistent.
 
Pods have been used in Europe for over 40 years and all our people at Unipods have vast experience with off-site technology; we have production, design and technical expertise, and I think the whole modular, off-site technology for constructing developments will progress in the GCC. We are moving into new areas of modular designs and there’s no reason why it won’t continue. It’s very possible to see a time when the majority of a development is built in this way.

We make a product called the Uniboard, which is a commercial pre-planned system that creates large multi-washrooms for universities, hospitals and schools. We’re also launching our new Unikitchens brand; utilising the industry’s best production machinery from the UK’s Grange Kitchen & Interiors, we’ll be producing pod kitchens – as diverse, quality controlled and high quality as our bathrooms – in our purpose-built 55,000ft² factory in Ras Al Khaimah.

Pods can be every bit as diverse and customised as standard rooms but, depending on the project, once specification, colour and materials have been signed-off, we can deliver to the project within 12 to 15 weeks.

We do 2-star to 7-star and our pods come in either concrete or lightweight steel. The lightweight steel weighs around 450kg per m² which makes it an excellent option for large hotels or high-rises.

Marco Boldrini, marketing and sales manager at Hydra Bathroom Solutions

As a building technique, prefabrication has been around for a while in Europe but, in the UAE, it is still a relatively new technology and branch of the industry. However, developers, architects and contractors in the region are realising the many benefits that off-site technology offers.

It’s true that the specification of the bathroom is important and that the architectural part of the process is extremely significant; it is certainly beneficial if developers involve pod suppliers from the design and architectural phase. The architect will specify the fittings and the accessories and, from there, we can create a pod bathroom catering for anything from budget to 7-star.

We currently provide bathroom pods, with kitchen pods also on their way this year, and developers are quickly realizing that, firstly, going prefab can take 15-20% of the costs out of a project; secondly, they’re quicker and, finally, a really big benefit, pods are of a higher quality as the products are manufactured in a controlled environment. There are no issues in terms of products being damaged on-site. What we offer is, in fact, a full high quality, high-tech turn-key solution.

Robert Harper, commercial director of TecnoIN

Prefabrication has been in the Middle East for about five years. We’re still introducing it and it is gathering a lot of interest and popularity.

All of the large developers are interested and some have entered into joint ventures with parts manufacturers.

It’s always important to point out that we can cater for all types of bathrooms; whether it’s for labour accommodation or a 5-star hotel, the manufacturing technique does not change – only the cost does. 

Designing prefab units requires a great deal of architectural input. We design the bathroom pods according to clients’ specifications and every project is different to the one before. A typical project may have 10 to 12 different bathroom designs, but they are all made to customer requirements, whether for villas, apartments of hotels.