301159 Modern Construction Projects: Parkwood Building Systems Report

This report presents a case study on Parkwood Building Systems, an Australian company specializing in modular home construction. It explores the benefits of this innovative technology, including significant cost and time savings (30-40% and 50%, respectively), waste reduction, increased quality, and enhanced construction site safety. The report highlights the company's adoption of high-tech methods to build residential modular homes, emphasizing the advantages of prefabricated houses in terms of design flexibility, construction speed, and energy efficiency. It also addresses the limitations of the system, such as technical and economic challenges, and explores potential improvements, particularly in enhancing sustainability. The study compares traditional and modular construction methods, providing data on various aspects like time reduction, reduced disruption, and waste minimization. The report concludes by emphasizing the potential of modular homes for the future of construction, including the integration of sustainable features and the use of innovative materials.

Parkwood Building Systems
Student Name, Student Number, Email Address
Executive Summary
Parkwood Building Systems is a promising trend of the modular home and housing in designing of
homes and for the construction market. It is being embedded in practice of the modular construction.
The case study report on Parkwood Building Systems revealed the benefits of using this new
innovative technology in the field of construction so that it becomes a sustainable and energy efficient
solutions for the homeowners to build their homes. There is a cost savings of around 30-40% in
addition time savings of around 50%. Savings on both time and cost lead people to have interest in
using the building system. Apart from time and cost, Parkwood Building Systems provides benefits in
reduction of waste, increase in quality, construction safety and reduction of strain on the construction
site. Apart from the benefits, the limitations of Parkwood Building Systems are technical failures in
size and building context, economical issues of immature business models in addition social
limitations associated to dishonor as well as work politics. The quality of the construction work comes
from the components of the building and built properly with the exact project specifications. This type
of construction reduces consumption of energy of building work and provides sustainability.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1.Company Name
Parkwood is an Australian Company, involved to build homes using high-tech technology, drive built
complex at Somersby on New South Wales Central Coast. The specialists of the company maintains
significant standards of the quality control at each stage of the production. The company is established
in the year 1988, with many years of experiences within the industry. Parkwood Company is
developing range of the 1-2 bedroom granny flats, 2 to 6 bedrooms homes, Smart Pods for the
manufactured homes. It has strong foundations into the commercial projects include security
buildings, schools, mobile offices and sports clubs and others (Parkwood Homes 2019).
1.2.Project Name, Description
The project taken for Parkwood Building Systems is residential modular homes. Parkwood Homes is
delivering array of the modern home designs customized to suit with the client’s requirements. With
vast array of the designs as well as an angle towards the modern architecture, the modular home is
increasing at faster rate, as it becomes a new way to get the dream home built in faster way
(parkwoodhomes.com.au 2019).
2. THE PROBLEM(S)
The problem is that the traditional home plan used for building of homes takes long time. The
procedure for the designing and building work requires more time and needs highly skilled designers
and builders for designing purpose of the homes. Long time for the construction takes more
construction, labor in addition to materials cost and therefore the entire process becomes more
expensive. The main problems related to traditional home designing method is lack of skilled workers,

Parkwood Building Systems Surname of the first author
long scheduling, lack of interaction and change in minds of the homeowners regarding home designs
(Al-Maskari et al. 2017). The traditional home plan is limited the designers to select building materials
available for the area and community. It forces the home designers to alter the plan and limit the
selection of the materials for the home design. This problem provides effect on ability of homeowner
to have type of home as per their desires included usage of the sustainable materials to design a green
as well as energy efficient homes. When looking at the traditional home plan, a homeowner should
permit the designer to bring other design as well as building systems to meet with their requirements
(Srivastava et al. 2017). In order to overcome with the problem, an innovative technology is discussed
in this paper- Parkwood Building Systems, it is a modular building technology followed the
requirements of the clients.
3. THE INNOVATION(S)
The Parkwood Building Systems is an innovative technology for building of residential modular
homes. It contains string structure that can make the home building work more durable as compared to
the traditional method. Prefabricated houses are required to meet with the design requirements of the
homeowner. The modular home is taking shorter time for the construction and home design as it
builds less than two months at the factory. The reason behind shorter construction duration is
automation, great teamwork as well as great repeatability. Assemble of the construction site is taking
few days (Louis-Joseph and Lesot 2019). This building system is innovative for the professionals and
homeowners as it has high quality of both building as well as designing work. Reason behind it is its
detailed shop drawings of the modular homes as compared to the traditional homes. The modular
homes are very detailed as well as elaborated so that the homeowners can get to know about its design
and materials used. Apart from time, modular homes are highly health as well as safety, therefore it
increases quality of the work. As the construction process is short, therefore it requires low cost for the
investor (Zhu 2018). There is no required to pay any rent for social rooms. The modular home system
maintains sustainability in their building and designing process. Acoustic of the modular home is
better as compared to other method. In the prefabricated house, each of the module is separated. The
modules are to be connected in house, mainly protected from the noise and also energy and
environmental efficient.
4. OUTCOME – LIST SPECIFIC BENEFITS INCLUDING ANY DATA ON SAFETY,
QUALITY, COST, OR SCHEDULE
The Parkwood Building Systems is unique as the homes are built in the climate controlled factory. The
building work reduces chances of the weather related project delays as well as problems. The modular
housing construction is allowed various options as well as designs and the builder is required to work
as per the client’s requirements. The builders offered the homeowners with list of house plans and they
have to select from the list of the styles. The homeowners are also provided offers to customize the
home as per their selection and desires (Hui, Sherratt and Sánchez 2017). As per the state building
codes, there is also possibility to upgrade the construction specifications, design of the floor plans,
pick for the styles of the windows and siding and other fixtures.
The modular homes are built with better quality of construction, where the modular homes are being
built in the factory. The manufacturers are able to use tools unavailable to site manufacturer like
custom factory-made jigs to make sure that walls, floors as well as ceilings are to be square as well as
plumb. In this case, the interior walls are to be lag-bolted to exterior walls as well as insulation is to be
installed on the electrical outlet boxes (Sun et al. 2019). Quality engineering as well as modern
construction methods can cause increase in the energy efficiency of the modular homes. It ensures that
it is economical and also comfortable for living in regards to weather. The modular homes using
Parkwood Building Systems uses two-by-six framing of the walls. The modular homes are less air
infiltration, is considered as causes of the heat loss in the home (Oliveira et al. 2017). The
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manufacturer is able to make improved seal round the electrical passage as well as fixtures, as they can
get access to walls.
Apart from energy efficient, the modular homes are also environmental friendly and maintain
sustainability. The engineering construction and building materials are used, as well as effective in the
plant recycling at the modular home engineering facilities. It is seen that all the excess materials are to
be recycled, and it is also not sound impressive (Nop and Thornton 2019). Waste from the
construction site of the home goes to landfill and waste from the modular home is being recycled. The
modular home sustainability is based on following factors:
Waste reduction: There is around 42% of the solid waste generated by Australia is related to the
building waste. Modular building is reducing the waste as well as off-cuts as timber as well as other
construction materials used for pre-cut. It allows for reuse of the materials from the existing dwelling.
Pollution minimization: As less machinery is used for the construction of modular homes, therefore
it requires less vehicular access and minimization of impact on the surroundings environment (Eliseev
et al. 2019).
Energy savings: Modular building method is allowed to use for passive designs process for
construction of the modular homes. It reduces need of the auxiliary cooling as well as heating process,
which are accounted for 40% of the energy usage (Santoro and Wilkinson 2019). Modular home
designs is maximized usage of the natural resources like wind patterns for the home cooling,
generation of heat by sun as well as wind patterns.
Materials: The modular building is allowed to use of the sustainable resources which can contribute
to the post construction investments through the current as well as environmental advantages
(Gascoigne and Metcalfe 2017). In order to build modular homes, there is require to use of the
sustainable sourced materials like plantation timber, eco cladding like weathertex with the zero carbon
footprint as well as adhesives and sealants.
Based on the speed and designing time of the modular construction, the modular homes are built in 1/3
time required to construct the built home with proper planning in weeks. The building time for the
modular home is reduced by means of concurrent site working as well as home construction work. It
also helps to reduce interest on the construction financing. In addition all this, in the building industry
of modular homes, there is required to have skilled workers having experience in modular home
designs.
Cost is most important advantage for the Parkwood Building Systems as the modular homes are not so
much expensive as compared to the traditional home. It is not guaranteed that 100% of the modular
homes are cheaper, while it is mainly based on its home designs, requirements of the materials,
location and others (Swapan, Marinova and Bay 2019).
Before starting of the home manufacturer work, the building plan is required to review as well as
approve by the state where manufacturer is intended to sell it to the homes. The homes are to be
designed as well as built with code for state where the home is to be shipped for the final locations.
Based on the research, it shows that as compared to the traditional construction method, the modular
home building demonstrates the following:
I. There is time reduction of almost 50%
II. There is reduction of 90% less disruptions of the neighbors as well as traffic around the
construction surroundings (Cooper et al. 2017).
III. Reduction of the construction materials needs, wastage, usage of water
IV. Fewer embodied energy over the building lifecycle (Swapan, Bay and Marinova 2018).
V. Reduction of the transport energy, increase in recyclability of the materials and reduction of
the carbon footprint
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Figure 1: Comparison of Traditional Construction and Modular Homes
(Source: Srivastava et al. 2017, pp.428)
5. POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENT(S) ON THIS INNOVATION(S)
The modular homes are far from the future. New materials as well as technology are taken for the
modular housing purpose leads to reduce the building time. It is a biggest advantage of this
construction style is that it saves time while offers cost efficiencies. It also provides a safer workplace
for the construction workers with a controlled manufacturing at enthusiastic facilities as well as
pointed the environmental impacts. The modular home system is moving at faster rate. The other
benefits of this building system are that modular homes are located at land as well as ground
conditions (Srivastava et al. 2017). There is required to make improvements over the modular home
system by making it more sustainable. The sustainable home is incorporate with solar designs features
like house orientation, insulation, energy and water efficiencies and good ventilation. It takes in
considerations of proper usage of the building materials and equipment’s. The modular homes within
Australia employs designing principles like design which are taking benefit of climate to maintain a
contented temperate variety in the home. It reduces requirements of the auxiliary heating in addition
cooling (Gascoigne and Metcalfe 2017). In order to meet with the requirements of sustainability,
Parkwood Building Systems uses strategic orientation as well as layout, with shaded windows along
with high insulations.
6. CONCLUSION
It is concluded that sustainability is considered as integral part of the architectural design of
the modular homes. Parkwood Building Systems is centered on with a desire to produce an eco-
friendly modular homes for the homeowners. The modular homes are built innovative, calm, healthy
in addition ecological sustainable. Sustainable designing and eco-friendly design of the homes
minimize the environmental influences, maximizes the comfort, lessen the construction time as well as
reduce the running and operational costs. The principles are being applied to home design included
orientation, selection of the materials, utilization of the system along with processes. By means of
using the Parkwood Building Systems, it provides long term affordability as it is a perfect design for
the family buildings and commercial premises. Requirement of less construction materials and usage
of the technology leads to reduce the construction cost by 50%. Safety of the workers is also
considered as priority as there is no required to visit the construction site and work with in the field.
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7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thanks to my supervisor for the guidance provided for this case study work.
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