The rise of the design and build company
Looking to build your own home, with surety on price and a clear path to a hands-off build? Are eco credentials a consideration? Mark Brinkley looks at one emerging solution
Self-build expert Mark Brinkley investigates the details of this hands-off approach to creating an individual home — and why it’s gaining traction in the UK
Thanks to the reach of TV, magazines and exhibitions, more and more people are looking to build their own homes and with the establishment of large self- and custom build schemes like Graven Hill in Oxfordshire, it’s getting easier to find land. Graven Hill, in particular, seems to be a game changer. Not only is it encouraging waves of would-be self-builders, but new businesses are sprouting up to cater for them in ways not seen in the UK before.
Traditionally, the UK self-build market has catered for the hands-on self-builder who is prepared to rough it a bit in order to achieve their dream home.this might involve living in a rented house or a caravan for a year or two, while spending hundreds of hours on site managing subcontractors and undertaking various tasks themselves. Only a relatively small segment of the self-build market could afford to take a back seat and hand over the whole job to a main contractor. As for our package builders, they tended to offer a shell-only service, leaving their customers to navigate the maze of different possible finishes on their own.
The Germans and the Scandinavians do things differently. Over the Channel, the vast bulk of custom homebuilders do little more than choose the finish materials and write a few large cheques.the typical European factory-housebuilder undertakes
everything from design through to planning permission, housebuilding and finishes.
This option has long been available in the UK but almost invariably from companies based in mainland Europe, such as the German companies Huf Haus, Hanse Haus and Baufritz or the Polish-based Danwood, who are particularly active at the Graven Hill site where they have built a show house.these companies have successfully helped UK self-builders wanting a more hands-off build for many years.
But we are now witnessing a new wave of designled turnkey businesses, often with a very sustainable bent.these new entrants to the market are looking to take the stress out of the building process while minimising its impact on the environment.
One such business is Facit Homes, which was formed 10 years ago by architect Bruce Bell. Bruce wanted to take control of the whole building process, so he created a build system based on digitally manufactured plywood components he called the Facit Chassis. Facit Homes are designed using BIM (Building Information Modelling) and this information feeds into a computer-controlled 3D cutting machine. Each individual chassis piece has its identification number routed into its plywood component, making it simple for on-site carpenters to erect the pieces in the correct order.
‘‘ It’s certainly an interesting time for selfbuilders. The choices of who to work with are expanding
Facit Homes offers turnkey and self-finish builds. The company runs projects from its London office using 360º photos taken twice weekly from the site, which keep the office appraised of what is happening at the sharp end. This is a very technology-driven business; it even uses Google Hangouts to enable the site crew to talk directly with the office whenever they encounter an issue. The clients are free to design any structure they wish and the choice of finishes is also at their own discretion. Facit Homes offers a fixed price at the completion of the design stage and the promise of a relatively quick build programme.
I spoke with Marc Marsdale who, with his wife Laura, moved into a Facit-built home on the Graven Hill site earlier this year. “We liked what we saw of Facit Homes, and were keen to work with them. We like modern design but neither of us is involved in construction, so we really wanted a builder who could take care of everything and Facit Homes
seemed to fit.we also liked the Graven Hill plot passport idea which encouraged us to use unusual materials like Corten steel and burnt timber for claddings. Together, we came up with a 246m2 house with a large open-plan area on the ground floor. It’s gone very well and we are pleased with the result.”
Rhys Denbigh, sales director of Facit Homes, who showed me around another home the company is building at Graven Hill, reckons that Facit Homes has a pricing sweet spot, based on the size of home. “We don’t compromise on quality and tend not to be so competitive on smaller homes, but we come into our own on four and five bedroom houses.”
Facit Homes is still a young company; it’s built around 20 homes with many more in the pipeline.
Another innovator making waves at Graven Hill is Paul Gladman. His company, Ecofast Systems, has built a show house there and has agreed to build some custom homes for the Graven Hill Development Company. Paul has spent years perfecting a modern take on timber post and beam housing, based around a patented jointing system that makes assembly of the glulam beams and floor cassettes very quick and simple.
He developed the basis of the system back in the late 1990s from his base in Essex, but he felt at the time that the UK market wasn’t ready for such innovation, so he decamped first to New Zealand and then to Australia, where custom build is commonplace and customers were willing to buy into large open-plan living spaces.
Since then, Graven Hill, by far the largest self-build and custom build site the UK has ever seen, has tempted Paul to return to his roots and set up shop. “I felt the time was right at last and Graven Hill was just the place to launch a new housebuilding system. My wife and I moved into our new home here and it took us just 60 working days to complete the home after we broke ground, so we proved the system works here.”
One of the big advantages of the Ecofast system is that it uses a piled foundation. Rather than excavating for foundation trenches, concrete piles are placed beneath each of the structural posts and the foundation process is reduced in both time and cost. Paul commented: “Our show home here used just 6.5m3 of concrete, just one load of ready-mix — about a fifth of what a conventional foundation would use. The foundations can be completed in just a couple of days and we can offer a finished shell just four weeks after making a start on the foundations.you can have any external cladding you like except brick, as there is nothing for a loadbearing wall to sit on.”
Ecofast will undertake design and finishes as well as shell construction. “We believe our system will be competitive with other options, especially
‘‘ We are witnessing a new wave of designled turnkey businesses, often with a sustainable bent
as our foundation costs are around half what standard beam and block is costing at Graven Hill,” says Paul Gladman. The system is recognised and underwritten by Premier Guarantee, which is positive news when applying for a mortgage.
Hexxhome is another innovator setting its stall out at Graven Hill. It’s a factory-based solution but it uses pre-cast concrete as its main building element. Chris Bell, the man behind the company, has worked in the pre-cast concrete industry and has come up with a system build based around craning panels into place to make up the structural elements of a home. Many of the floor panels are hexagonal in shape which lends itself to interesting floorplans with lots of angled reveals. Hexx, too, has taken the bold step of building a show house on site at Graven Hill and hopes to encourage potential customers to look at concrete as an alternative build method. It is common in the commercial sector and in other parts of the world, but has been little used for individual homes in the UK to date.
Away from Graven Hill, other innovators are also setting out their stall. One such is Reading-based Kiss House, which is developing an ultra-green Passivhaus homebuilding business that plans to take on every aspect of the build including foundations.
Kiss’s Mike Jacob told me that they have been working with several custom build developers on creating a build system based on using a laminated veneered lumber (LVL) beam and panel system. “We are not really in the business of creating totally bespoke homes, because the costs run too high. Instead we plan to offer some beautiful, simple and green homes where there are no large architect’s fees because we are using modular elements that fit together simply and easily. Our system will work well for either the individual self-builder or the custom builder who wants to build several homes, provided they work within the parameters set by the system. It’s very simple, elegant and beautiful.”
It works with a rectangular form, which makes good sense in keeping costs down and increasing energy efficiency levels.
It’s certainly an interesting time for self-builders. The choices of who to work with are expanding, as are the options for how to build and what materials to use. It’s not just self-builders who are excited about all these new possibilities, it’s the designers and builders as well.