In actual fact, what we really need are low-power devices to gather information about simple things.

Good for everybody,” she says.. To illustrate, Marks mentions that she once worked on a billion-dollar hospital project, originally planned with over 700 different types of bathroom.The situation wasn’t beneficial for anyone involved, she says, and wasn’t sensible from either a build or operational perspective.

Ultimately, her team whittled the final total down to a mere seven types - a change that worked better on every level of the project.. Talking transformation: ‘Industrialised Construction’ & ‘MMC.’.One of the challenges we’re facing is that, on a very basic level, the construction industry has an issue with language.Terms lose their meaning, or are used to mean different things by different people, Marks says.

These days we use terms like ‘industrialised construction’ to refer to the overarching DfMA principle being used throughout the built environment.Marks has embraced industrialised construction as a term, however, but she acknowledges that some industry professionals, working in areas that aren’t directly related to construction, don’t always feel represented by it.. There’s also the term ‘Modern Methods of Construction’ (MMC), which Marks says she used to use but doesn’t anymore.

These days she finds the meaning too ambiguous.

In 2005, she bought a 76-year-old company that built steel and concrete volumetric modular, as well as some assemblies.But building occupiers will also need to balance the need to open the windows with safety security concerns, especially when there are periods of low or no occupancy.

People on ground floors in largely empty offices may feel particularly vulnerable to intruders, for example.And open windows or doors may pose a health and safety risk if there’s a chance people will walk into them.. There’s an equally complicated scenario for mechanically ventilated buildings.

With heat recovery devices switched off and air flows turned up to the maximum, buildings will struggle to warm up in the early morning.Once a building is up to temperature it may well overheat as the ‘coolth’ normally recovered from an office is being thrown away.