MBH is always striving to achieve the best quality clay products. At Freshfield Lane the team takes a professional and moral duty to retain these standards.
The durability and longevity of this long standing building product is the underlying factor as to why so many home owners choose to live in brick buildings. Users have an increased feeling of safety from a robust structure and can benefit from the high thermal performance of the clay fabric whilst spending little or no money for maintenance.
(Above) Oakgrove Village, Milton Keynes.
Brick is favourite
A recent survey showed that 93% of people wanted to live in a brick and block constructed home [Concrete Block Association and Modern Masonry Alliance 2010 survey].
Made from an abundant natural material, which is often manufactured and used locally, on average a brick travels within an 80 mile radius from factory to site in the UK, providing an efficiently transported, carbon reduced, fabric first construction material. Whilst employment provided by the brick industry, particularly in rural areas such as the vicinity of Freshfield Lane, contributes significantly to the local economy.
Collaboration
With sustainable principles at the heart of MBH, the team are proud to work in collaboration with house builders to ensure a legacy for our future housing stock and built environment. Creating fully integrated community surroundings and quality safe construction, we work together to make sure that our living and working spaces will be popular for future generations.
Partnership with Crest Nicholson
The alliance between the producer of clay products and the well acclaimed housebuilder Crest Nicholson continues to develop and has ensured both a sustainable and local commitment to our communities, providing aspirational design whilst embracing resource efficiency principles. MBH bricks, pavers and tiles are provided in a wide variety of sizes, colours and textures to establish a multitude of aesthetical choice for the customer on a variety of Crest Nicholson developments.
The clay envelope of the building can aid the sustainability criteria of a design project. With a lifespan in excess of 150 years, clay products require little or no maintenance, and can be recycled at the end of the buildings life. They also contribute to thermal mass, resulting in buildings which need less energy for heating and cooling, and are certified as ‘very good’ under BES 6001 – responsible sourcing of materials with an A+ grading with the Building Research Establishment’s Green Guide.
Debbie Aplin, Managing Director of Crest Nicholson Regeneration says, “Our driving ambition is to be the market leader in the design and delivery of sustainable housing and mixed use communities.” With similar aims, MBH carries the same ethos, agreeing with Debbie’s continued mission statement, “to improve the quality of life for individuals and communities, both now and in the future, by providing better homes, work places, retail and leisure spaces within which they aspire to live, work and play.”
Master plan of Oakgrove development. The integration of the affordable housing element as an integral part of the development provides a mix of tenures and introduces diversity which will contribute to a successful living environment. Debbie Aplin says, “Crest Nicholson wanted to create a family of buildings with a consistent palette of high quality materials.”
Crest Nicholson’s contribution to the built environment has been recognised with a sequence of awards, reaching a highpoint in 2007 with The Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development. In 2012 a whole range of awards were presented to this successful housebuilder including the NHBC Health and Safety Awards, HBF annual Customer Satisfaction Survey, Housebuilder Award for Best Low or Zero Carbon Initiative and many more Housing Design Awards. This reinforces why MBH are enthusiastic to continue working with Crest Nicholson, utilising their clay products within the high quality developments that this respected housebuilder brings to the market and which demonstrates sustainable and durable architecture for communities now and in the future.
John Tebbit, Industry Affairs Director of the Construction Products Association has stated that “Building low and zero carbon homes is not easy. At present it is pushing designs, technologies and skills to the limit, resulting in increased costs and risks to all parties, including consumers. One way to reduce risks is to collaborate more closely with your supply chain. Integrating supply chains is not easy but with honesty and intelligence on all sides, we can work together to deliver low and zero carbon homes at affordable prices and with minimal risk.” Crest Nicholson should be commended for maintaining a high standard within their supply chain and MBH is proud to be continuously selected as their brick maker of choice.
Collaboration is the future of sustainable design and only by working in conjunction with the team at Crest Nicholson can MBH thrive to innovate products that enhance our ever evolving community surroundings with architectural merit. That is why MBH took the instrumental decision to be the first manufacturer to implement Building Information Modelling for its wide variety of clay products.
Building Information Modelling (BIM)
Partnership lies at the heart of BIM, generating digital 2D and/or 3D drawings and creating designs with intelligent objects. Regardless of how many times the design changes or who changes it the data remains consistent, coordinated, and more accurate across all stakeholders. Cross functional project teams in the building and infrastructure industries use these model based designs as the basis for new, more efficient collaborative work-flows that give all relevant parties a clearer vision of the project and increase their ability to make more informed decisions faster.
MBH is prepared for the Government’s 2016 deadline for mandatory implementation of BIM on public projects and hope that the experience gained through early adoption will be invaluable for housebuilders such as Crest Nicholson in the future. This will again contribute towards the improvement of sustainable design and construction, minimising waste with accurate specification of materials, engaging in an Integrated Project Delivery.
It is clear that through the continued collaboration of these two companies, who both clearly express a strong ethos for sustainability, that our future housing stock will be top quality, efficient and affordable for our future generations. Communities will benefit from buildings built with longevity and durability at the heart of each development, evolving to provide a wide variety of spaces for our families to live and enjoy.
