Edinburgh Napier University

  The manufacture and pre-assembly of components, elements or modules offsite before installation into their final location are evident throughout construction history. Medieval carpenters’ pre-manufacturing the frames of buildings in their yards to ensure onsite accuracy is a good example of this. However, labour shortages at the beginning of the nineeteenth century during a period of urbanisation and colonial expansion catalysed the first industrial scale exploitation of offsite techniques. Examples include the Manning cottage manufactured in England and subsequently shipped to Australia in the 1830s and the use of prefabricated timber balloon and platform frame techniques revolutionising construction practice as a result of the need to build rapidly in North America and Australia during a similar time (Herbert, 1978; Hairstans, 2010). The uptake and success of these forms of construction at an industrial scale were not simply as a result of one ‘driver’–they were as a result of a combination of ‘drivers’ correctly intersecting to instigate change.