As a result, there will be less carbon going into the building and the lifecycle impact of the building will be lower.

These include representatives from Tier 1 contractors, housing and healthcare companies, as well as other research bodies like the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC).This is all adding to the excitement.. Research acceleration due to COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic took hold just as academics and researchers received funding.The resulting lockdown forced the redesign of entire research programs, an accomplishment achieved with great perseverance and agility.Challenging Space Frontiers in Hospitals.

by Dr Grant Mills from UCL, and involving Bryden Wood Director Steven Tilkin, incorporated Bryden Wood’s innovative work in platform design (P-DfMA).The project was quite far advanced when the pandemic hit, and the timing was particularly pertinent, occurring just as hospital construction began recognising the need to look at other processes, such as offsite construction, standardisation and moving to scale of production.

The project research focused on an interesting sectoral comparison between the clean room environment of operating theatres in hospitals, and the modules of a spacecraft.

As spacecraft are created offsite and have similar ventilation issues to operating theatres, there were learnings to be made from the way material procurement is handled in the space industry.It’s likely that many of the current Tier 1 players will remain very powerful in the new market, but we’re also likely to see big disruptors coming in.

Not only that, I suspect some of the current players will disrupt their own business models to broaden the range of services and income streams they're able to generate.. We’re also likely to see some contractors start to diversify the services they offer, or broaden their range of products.They’ll need to be able to respond to what happens in the future, as we change our focus to the provision of whole-life solutions, rather than just capital assets.

Pure contracting, as we currently know it, is likely to be a smaller part of the market.Consultancy models are also likely to change, with a shift away from hourly rates for procured design services, towards an outcome and value-based model.