Nobody asks a brick wall if it’s MMC

Build a wall in a factory and it picks up an MMC label, with a helping of perceived risk on the side. Build it in brick and it gets waved through with no label at all.

Our director Matthew Egan thinks that double standard has had its day, and the Offsite Alliance has just published his case for ending it. One Industry, One Classification Framework went live on 5 November.

The short version

Two walls open the piece, one brick and one a steel panel from a factory, and both hold the building up in the same way. Matthew’s fix is a British Standard with one set of questions for everything, brick included.

The prize is pricing. The people who lend on, insure and warrant buildings could judge the system in front of them and leave the label out of it.

How it sorts things out

“What does it do?” comes first, with four possible answers: structure, enclosure, services or infill. How it was made comes second and how it carries load third, with material, connection and completion bringing up the rear.

Run the two walls from the opening through it and you get the same answer for both, which is primary structure.

Fans of the 2019 MMC categories can relax. Those categories survive, and the classification works them out for you. The review panel already has 25 pages of draft to chew on.

Your turn

The article ends with homework. Tell Matthew where the scope falls short, put your hand up for the drafting panel, and send your thoughts to matthew.egan@by-design.group.

There is room on that panel for brick and block builders as well as manufacturers, which rather proves the point.

Why we care

Optimize by Design draws steel, timber and modular systems the way factories build them. We would like every one of them judged on the same scale as brick.