Having been involved a little in a project to look at the production of carbon-neutral synthetic aviation fuel and conversations about the replacement of coal-fired power stations with small nuclear energy generation; I wanted to know how many small nuclear plants it would take to replace the totality of aviation fuel.

Furthermore, to construct a building that has been designed using DfMA the builder needs to understand the basis of the design and how it has informed the construction approach.This means DfMA can be much more collaborative than conventional design, bringing the designer and builder closer together to pursue a common goal..

There are many different methods of constructing a building.In addition to conventional methods, alternatives have been developed that deploy prefabrication, pre-assembly, design standardisation and/or automation to some degree and these are collectively referred to as Modern Methods of Construction (MMC)..Exploring the MMC toolkit: from offsite construction to PPVC and beyond.

MMC is the collective term for the innovative construction methods that can be deployed by the DfMA designer.MMC can be considered as the DfMA designer’s “toolkit”.

The DfMA designer finds the most suitable innovations in the MMC toolkit (or develops new innovations) to meet a project’s unique challenges..

There are many construction innovations that can be considered MMC.It includes the technology used to track the movements of a tower crane as well as highly complex design authoring software.

It attempts to make existing tasks easier, but not necessarily change the underlying nature of those tasks.. Part of our endeavour is to bring together all sorts of discrete technologies and products, whose aim is to solve discrete problems.It’s also about addressing the design process – and the way we design – as a whole, to create a different end product.

Within the design process, people shouldn’t just be seen as resources who are expected to deliver something, they should be allowed to think more broadly about the problems they’re addressing.And design automation technology should enable that – it should create possibility, not define it.. We work directly with clients to create technology that addresses their business needs and activities – not necessarily just the needs of architects and designers.