QBuild, the Queensland government’s building agency is leaping ahead of the nation on modern methods of construction to address the housing crisis. It’s working with private sector providers in the industry and at three of its own facilities at Eagle Farm, Zillmere and Cairns to build capacity with an army of tradies, support staff and apprentices.
QBuild, the Queensland government’s builder with the Office of the Queensland Government Architect, is going gangbusters with its modern methods of construction or MMC program that’s building much-needed key worker and social housing in regional and remote areas of the state.
By the end of this year the program will have built more than 100 single storey detached and duplex modular homes, with another 600 in the pipeline to be completed by the end of 2025.
This will include around 200 low-rise apartments to address the need for so called missing middle housing.
“The MMC program in Queensland is very much about architects and builders working together … it’s a really great example of how the thinkers and the doers, can work collaboratively to solve the housing crisis,” according to Peter Nelson, director of MMC strategy and design.
“The focus here is about building more homes faster, in a uniquely Queensland way.”
What is MMC?
MMC is a term for innovative techniques that improve on traditional construction methods. It often refers to offsite construction systems such as prefabricated and modular housing, but also includes cutting-edge technologies such as 3-D printing.
MMC is not new – innovation in construction methods has been around for decades as construction methods have modernised, including the rise of prefab in Australia during the post-World War II period.
According to Nelson, one of the reasons Queensland is leading the way in MMC implementation is that lightweight, transportable construction is in the state’s DNA. “Queensland is very familiar with putting a timber building on a bullock wagon or truck, transporting it and dropping it on a site. We weren’t blessed with a masonry tradition of sandstone or bricks.”
Proven advantages of MMC
The advantages of using MMC (particularly prefab) in housing include:
- faster building in a factory
- factory controlled settings to improve and control quality
- ability to standardise and adapt designs
- lower costs with mass production
- less disruption during construction
- sustainability benefits:
- more efficient use of materials and reduced waste
- slashing carbon emissions by 45 per cent compared to traditional builds
- the ability to design and replicate healthy, energy efficient homes
Despite its many advantages and potential for addressing the housing crisis, only 5 per cent of new homes in Australia are prefabricated. Yet examples abound overseas of using MMC to develop high quality, affordable and sustainable housing, including low and high-rise. Just take a look at the work of Plant Prefab in the US and the range of beautiful prefab homes in Scandinavia, to name just a few.
Working out the economics for the Queensland context
In the initiation phases of QBuild’s MMC project, which started about three years ago, some big picture thinking was done to work out the economic factors and general design approach.
Sensum and its work with the Government Architect Scott Hearne, of construction consultancy firm Sensum, was brought in by QBuild and Office of the Queensland Government Architect to run a series of “Design Sprint” workshops with stakeholders to work out the balance between good design, cost effective manufacturing and value.
One of the fundamentals behind MMC is that volume is needed to create viable outcomes. So, the workshops looked at ways to get design consistency, by finding common ground between key worker and social housing needs – which have both commonalities and differences. They worked on the 80/20 principle – 80 per cent similarity and 20 per cent difference.
This enabled QBuild to find the balance between high volume factory production and adaptability to needs and contexts. The workshops produced the standardised design tools and minimum requirements needed to proceed to tender and implementation.
Building MMC homes in regional and remote settings
QBuild’s first building phase is focused mostly on single key worker homes in regional areas.
“We’re not talking about caravans, tiny homes, dongas or demountables,” Nelson said, we’re delivering good homes that meet all the latest National Construction Code requirements for safety, health, energy efficiency and accessibility.”
The project’s working method is a “spatial kit of parts” approach. This involves developing rooms that meet minimum design requirements and putting them together into standardised floor plans, much like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Design is a collaborative process to ensure that housing is adapted to differing needs and contexts. The modules can be transported and delivered as volumetric segments, flat packed, or a combination of both.
Clients include government employee housing and social housing, as well as agencies that provide housing on their own land, such as health, education, policing and correctional services. MMC is particularly suitable for these types of clients for which “batching, aggregating and delivering at scale is so critically important,” Nelson said.
The program is also being used in the government’s disaster response, including following the bushfires at Tara, west of Brisbane
The agency is working through “baby steps” – moving from single storey homes through incremental change into low-rise apartment developments – the next phase of the project that will soon go to tender. As well as building Queensland-specific MMC methods and capacity over time, Nelson acknowledged this process is critical for their suppliers, many of which “have come off the back of largely single-storey and detached volumetric steel frame construction”.
Building local MMC capacity
QBuild is working with a range of private sector MMC suppliers, many of which have never worked with government before. This is part of their approach to scaffold the industry, build capacity and develop Queensland’s “homegrown MMC in its many forms.”
It’s also training an army of MMC tradies, with the establishment of three Rapid Accommodation and Apprentice Centres in Eagle Farm, Zillmere and Cairns. These centres train and employ apprentices, tradespeople and support staff.
As well as helping to address the state’s construction tradie shortage (estimated at around 18,000 workers below demand in 2023), these centres also serve a research and development function, testing out new MMC ideas in the Queensland context.
Nelson pointed out that working with traditional construction contractors is also important, both for site preparation for MMC housing (think driveways, paths, landscaping and concrete landings) and to promote local jobs and growth in regional areas. He’s also aware that collaboration between MMC and traditional construction contractors will become increasingly necessary for more complex low-rise projects in the near future.
Environmental and social benefits are coming through
According to Sensum’s Scott Hearne, MMC builds completed to date have proven that the theory and methods work. Benefits have included the adaptability of designs, reduced use of materials, less waste (including suppliers recycling factory waste back into their product lines), efficiencies in delivery for remote locations, and providing housing in locations where the government previously couldn’t.
The program has also lowered embodied carbon with more timber and less steel, met NCC energy efficiency requirements, and built MMC capacity in trades and building companies.
But it’s also confirmed that in some contexts, traditional construction is more cost effective and efficient than MMC, such as in urban settings with lots of available trades. So potential needs to be assessed on a project basis and requires flexibility in being able to choose the most appropriate method.
A Torres Strait Island example
One of QBuild’s most exciting and challenging MMC projects to date is building housing in the Torres Strait Islands (TSI). This region is home to culturally diverse communities living in remote island environments, where transport and building logistics are complex and expensive, and climate and flood resilience are critical.
QBuild and the Government Architect have been working with the TSI Regional Council to co-design MMC housing that meets local needs, including making wooden blocks with QBuild’s different housing components, and sitting with councillors to design home models.
One base design they came up with is a single level, detached home constructed with timber framed floor, wall and roof cassette systems with low steel and embodied carbon. It’s suitable for hot, humid, salty and remote conditions.
A sample floor plan includes two modules containing two bedrooms, a laundry, kitchen, bathroom and indoor and outdoor living/dining spaces, connected by a central corridor that acts as a breezeway.
The bathroom module is placed on an outer edge of the house so it can be easily replaced in case it fails as so many do, while the rest of the building is likely to last much longer.
there features include a large entry deck that connects to the kitchen to encourage local fresh food practices.
Delivery is by barge with both volumetric and flat-packed components to minimise construction time, and the project seeks to increase the capacity of TSI to build, maintain and renew their homes into the future.
Nelson emphasised the importance of getting these homes right from the get-go to manage whole of life costs and ensure long-term sustainability.
David Chandler has issues with MMC but others say it can work
Critics of MMC, such as recently retired NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler, have said that failed business models and a high attrition rate have damaged this sector, leaving behind supply chain problems, unpaid debts, and no avenues for fixing defects.
But Nelson believes MMC is critical to Australia’s built environment future. “We have a shortage of skilled labour,” he said. “We have a construction industry that’s at capacity. So whether we like it or not, we need to look at new forms of construction and we need to embrace factory built solutions.”
He acknowledged that although new forms of construction bring challenges, including financing, compliance and issues around certification, these things need to be tackled in partnership with industry.
Other industry sources challenge Chandler, saying construction defects occur across all forms of building methods.
Nelson emphasised that build quality and control is actually better in MMC due to factory production. Furthermore, defect repairs are easier in MMC with components accessible and able to be disassembled, replaced and even refurbished and reused.
Meeting the challenges of MMC is a key part of QBuild’s “baby steps” approach – thinking, talking and critical learning through making, Nelson said.
Can MMC solve the housing crisis?
Nelson and Hearne agreed that we need all forms of construction to solve the housing crisis, including traditional construction and different and adaptable forms of MMC.
“MMC is not the silver bullet,” Nelson said. “But if we don’t work with industry [on this] then we’ll have bigger challenges in the next decade, given the infrastructure demands of transport, education, health and of course the 2032 Olympics.
“There are so many competing demands for skilled labour in construction, we need all hands on deck. That’s why we want to grow the MMC industry in Queensland.”
Future directions
Delivering MMC housing in Queensland is a mammoth job, but this state is leading the way Nelson said. He’s lost count of how many colleagues from other states have flown up to check out QBuild’s work and is always happy to share knowledge. “We recognise that the housing crisis is national, and we want to work with other [state] governments, because we know that standardisation and cross government collaboration is so important,” he said.
Through a “housing first” approach the program is already attracting key workers – teachers, nurses, doctors, emergency services and police officers – into regional Queensland, a vital part of building strong and resilient communities.
Hearne is currently exploring MMC applications with Homes NSW.
In NSW is also exploring other forms of MMC innovation, including two recently approved 3D printed homes for the Aboriginal Housing Office in Dubbo.
Hearne recently completed a second design sprint consultation process with QBuild looking at MMC low-rise. Both he and Nelson are excited about this imminent progression, as well as testing applications in more urban environments.
As for using MMC to help fix the housing crisis, Nelson has a simple answer. “Our MMC super strengths are speed, standardisation and scale, and we need harness all three,” he said.