Shortlist announced for Upper Orwell Bridge Project The prestigious competition to design the Upper Orwell Crossing in Ipswich has attracted a field of world-renowned architects. Suffolk County Council has published its five-name shortlist, which includes Willis Building designers Foster and Partners, Knights Architects (who worked on the A14 viaduct), and Paris-based Marc Mimram who was the architect for the Roland Garros Stadium. Toronto-based Adamson Associates, with William Matthews Associates and Ney and Partners, were also announced as a joint shortlist entrant as well as Wilkinson Eyre with FHECOR and EADON Consulting. The shortlist was selected by the Royal Institute of British Architects on behalf of Suffolk County Council, with its criteria including experience of collaborating on major infrastructure projects, working within a multi-disciplinary team environment, and designing projects of architectural distinction with a complexity, scale and/or budget similar to that required on the Upper Orwell Crossings scheme. The appointed architectural team will join an existing project team led by WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff which will be responsible for providing structural and civil engineering input to the project. The five short-listed teams will be invited to present their design concepts to the judging panel, chaired by Sir Michael Hopkins, with the winner scheduled to be announced later this year. www.suffolk.gov.uk/roads-and-transport/public- transport-bus-pass-and-transport-planning/upper- orwell-crossings/
Can modular homes solve the housing crisis? One of the top construction trends for 2017 is predicted to be a resurgence of interest in prefabricated houses. First built as a solution to the housing crisis after the Second World War, the current generation of ‘prefabs’ can be built with new technologies, and a finished house can be ready for delivery to site in as little as 24 hours. Prefabricated building techniques are simple, safe and cost effective, with contemporary designs which are attracting the interest of private homeowners and the public sector alike. This technological development has reached the attention of Teresa May’s Government as a possible solution to the UK’s housing crisis, and ministers have taken a “huge interest” in 21st-century prefabs after being impressed that some were erected on site in just 48 hours. It is expected that a Government white paper will be published early in 2017 which will include measures to encourage banks to lend to small firms that build houses off-site, which are then delivered to a final destination. Many of these new prefabs, now known as “modular homes”, will be aimed at younger first-time house buyers to help them on to the housing ladder. In one new scheme in Essex a developer is aiming to bring forward an estate’s regeneration by building hundreds of prefabricated homes off site. Swan Housing Association is aiming to start building about 500 homes from a factory in Basildon over the next five years, with a pilot project beginning in early 2017 which is expected to create about 40 new jobs.
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