The Forge

The Forge, at 105 Sumner Street in central London, is a landmark moment for the platforms approach to design for manufacture and assembly (P-DfMA).

Designed for development by Landsec, it will be the first major building completed using the P-DfMA approach, from building design to delivery.

In Transforming Infrastructure Performance: Roadmap to 2030, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority has announced that the Government will mandate a platforms approach within two years for social infrastructure. The Platform approach is also the focus of the Construction Innovation Hub.

The Forge is designed to a ‘zero carbon in use’ strategy, and is already achieving gains in:

• efficiency: a predicted 9.5% reduction in capital cost, 13% reduction in programme, 40% reduction in steel used and 50% reduction in site operatives for superstructure and facade
• sustainability: a forecast 24% reduction in embodied carbon per square metre compared to Business as Usual, a 40% carbon reduction in the substructure and 22% in the superstructure and façade.

The forge is two new-build commercial office buildings, built around a publicly accessible internal courtyard, in total comprising c. 139,000 sq ft. It will be nine storeys high with reception and basement areas. The development will be a high quality and sustainable building with a vastly improved streetscape and public realm.

It uses a hybrid steel and concrete structural platform that was developed as part of an Innovate UK First Phase Challenge Fund research project on Automated Construction. The structural platform developed as part of the R&D project will provide the chassis for the office floor space and the project will include the development of cladding and building services components to create a reusable kit-of-parts-based solution for offices.

The project showcases the benefits that can be delivered using P-DfMA techniques, Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) and digital technologies on a large-scale new build commercial office development.

The scale and ambition of the Forge should be a catalyst for change and a major step forward in proving the new business and financial metrics, whole life performance, and supply chain adoption needed – and deliverable – to accelerate the transformation of the construction sector.