To investigate issues of concern regarding temporary construction site accommodation and conduct an analysis to investigate measures to improve energy efficiency, energy supply, comfort level and ergonomics whilst at the same time reducing the environmental impact of construction villages.

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Good quality temporary construction site accommodation is vital in ensuring that projects proceed efficiently by ensuring that suitable accommodation is available for housing managers, engineers, administrative staff etc. There are obvious inefficiencies regarding energy usage, connectivity problems, set up difficulties and an uncomfortable working environment which have focused attention on developing a new concept for modern Construction Villages.

This project is concerned with the existing use of energy in the construction site temporary accommodation and the environmental quality that the accommodation offers. This project seeks to analyse the impact of improving energy efficiency through retrofitting energy efficient equipment, investigation of the insulation characteristics and introducing controllability to manage the demand for energy. The evaluation of renewable energy technologies and efficient supply systems were conducted in order to allow an assessment of the feasibility of self sufficient supply of a construction village.  

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This project is the brainchild of Laing O’Rouke Scotland (LORS) which is a business unit of the Laing O’Rouke Group. LORS provide total construction solutions to a variety of sectors including the residential, education, retail and commerce.

LORS’s idea of the new “Construction Village” is to radically renovate the current construction site accommodations that are being used in all large scale construction projects. Some of the concepts envisaged by LORS include utilizing the ‘pod’ design similar to the North Sea oil rigs, will be energy efficient and meeting the BREEAM Excellent Standard, should be self-sufficient for power and heating utilizing renewable energy sources and will interconnect effortlessly in terms of all wirings, piping system and communication lines. LORS through it’s resource person has seek the expertise in University of Strathclyde to look into this project in detail.

The group was excited when presented with this challenging project. Due to the limitation of time, the group have decided to conduct detail literature review of current issues faced by construction site accommodations, analyze the potential energy efficiency improvements to site accommodations and the possibility of integrating suitable renewable energy technologies in a construction village.

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The objectives of the project are to:

1.    Assess the current problems of setting up and running temporary site accommodations in general and in one of LORS’s construction site

2.    Establish a methodology and apply it to LORS’s construction site accommodations to determine possible energy savings from implementing selected energy efficiency measures

3.    Suggest possible Renewable Energy technology options that could be implemented economically to LORS’s construction site

4.    Determine the possible reduction in Carbon Dioxide emissions from implementing the proposed solutions

5.    Determine the total investment required and the pay back period of implementing the recommended measures.   

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