Agile, responsive, faster: Building better by design

Every few years, construction is offered a “silver bullet”. In the 1990s, Sir Michael Latham’s report promised collaboration would end fragmentation. In 1998, Sir John Egan’s Rethinking Construction set lean manufacturing as the new benchmark. More recently, Mark Farmer’s Modernise or Die urged offsite adoption to meet skills shortages. Each of these moments mattered, but each also showed how the industry moves in cycles, adopting new languages and frameworks in search of transformation.

Today the conversation is centred more around industrialisation of construction, and concepts like standardisation and product platforms. These ideas can be powerful in the right setting. Standardised designs have helped the Department for Education accelerate school delivery with greater certainty, for example. Yet such cases are specific, and most projects still demand contextual responses. Housing, healthcare, education, and hospitality each carry unique requirements that no single model can universally address.

We believe there is greater opportunity and scope in applying modern methods even more intelligently. When matched to context, MMC can deliver remarkable results. Balfour Beatty (2025) recently reported panelised timber housing programmes completing ten weeks faster and nearly three percent cheaper than traditional masonry. Timber frame systems are flexible in terms of meeting different design forms and seem to match the residential sector well. A structural frame can be erected at low cost and within a couple of weeks. These are tangible benefits, gained through practical, design-led choices.

Healthcare requires precision and resilience, education needs flexibility, and hospitality must balance efficiency with brand identity. The best outcomes come from application of a deep understanding of the supply chain, the systems available on the market and design that adapts between modular, panelised, and hybrid solutions as required, without losing sight of rigour and speed. We should be able to apply the right system to the corresponding need of the design and do that at pace.

Efficiency is not repetition for its own sake, but the product of intelligent choices. Used well, MMC is an enabler. Paired with value-based decision-making, it can reduce waste, cut costs, and strengthen quality. As Constructing Excellence noted (2021), MMC housing costs of around £3,000 per m² are already trending towards £2,000 as supply chains mature and decisions are made with value in mind.

In the end, clients do not need constraints. They need clarity, responsiveness, and solutions that fit the context. That is how construction delivers not only faster, but better, by design.

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