Company Report: Kingspan Off-Site
Kingspan Off-Site: The net-zero carbon challenge Tom Paul talks us through Kingspan Off-Site's groundbreaking Lighthouse project at BRE.

Of all the UK industries, it's arguably housebuilders and its associated supply chain that have most successfully embraced the challenge of moving towards zero carbon. The Government's Code for Sustainable Homes defines six levels of environmental sustainability, with level one set just above current building regulations and level six at 'net-zero carbon', including appliance, lighting and total occupant energy use. While level six will be mandatory by 2016, and a handful of manufacturers have anticipated the change by developing level four or five housing, only one company has been precocious enough to develop a net zero carbon house that already meets level six; Kingspan Off-Site.

Offsite solution
Kingspan Off-Site is part of Kingspan Group plc, a building products business focused on establishing leading market positions by providing innovative products, systems and solutions with a global reach. The Off-Site division is one of the largest and most experienced providers of modern methods of construction (MMC), a factor that was integral to the company's development of its zero emission home, Lighthouse at the Building Research Establishment (BRE) at Watford.

Tom Paul explains the origins of the division. "Historically the offsite industry has been centred around volumetric, 3D systems. We looked at this three years ago and thought about how we were going to move the agenda forward in the MMC sector. We established an offsite business development division which became Kingspan Off-Site. One of Kingspan's major strategic strengths as a group has been to take markets from niche to mainstream and for example the insulation and insulated panel businesses have done that; Kingspan is now the largest manufacturers of insulation and insulated roof and wall envelope systems certainly in Europe and probably globally. The objective now is for the Off-Site business to continue in that vein."

Kingspan's formula has been to develop strategic approaches to markets to move them from niche to mainstream, and therefore Off-Site is no different. The Lighthouse project can be seen as a bold initial step to moving both MMC and the carbon-zero home agenda towards the implementation of the Code for Sustainable Homes and developing a mainstream business position.

"We have looked very closely at the modern methods of construction agenda and identified that 3D volumetric systems were not cost neutral compared with traditional methods."

Kingspan Offite's response was to build a strategy based around 2D panelised systems. "The hole strategy is the development and application of 2D panelised systems right across the construction sector which includes residential private and affordable housing, apartments, , education, healthcare, hotel and leisure, and student accommodation," Paul explains. "We are talking about 2D frame systems incorporating outer and inner walls , floor cassettes combined with non-load bearing and load bearing external facades."

Additionally within the other businesses in the Group we have the capability to integrate a package of renewable technologies, sustainable urban drainage (SUDS) water conservation methods including rain water harvesting. Therefore we are in the business of providing property developers, constructors and their design teams a range of frame solutions in timber, structural insulated panels (SIPS), steel and hybrid. This coupled with a massive range of rainscreen facades enables us to provide a frame and shell package across any masterplan.

The integrated approach
Kingspan Off-Site worked alongside a number of experienced partners in its development of Lighthouse, including Architects Sheppard Robson, Arup, Davis Langdon, MacFarlane Wilder and CCB Evolution. Every material and component that was used was chosen specifically for its ability to optimise the house design's overall sustainability credentials. The company was in the perfect position to develop the innovations required to get to level six. "Kingspan has an excellent track record in delivering timber steel and hybrid frame systems. This means Off-Site can accommodate MMC needs and call on wider group capability and products, for example renewable energy products," says Tom Paul.

Kingspan Group provides products and solutions across all sectors of the global property market. It can call on manufacturing, distribution and commercial expertise in 35 locations, with some 25 manufacturing facilities.

Lighthouse was constructed using the company's TEK building system, incorporating structural insulated panels (SIPS) which provide outstanding thermal efficiency with low air-tightness. "The big advantage of TEK is that it comes off a manufacturing line. It's a holistic panelised system in itself - when you pull it together as a wall, floor or roof assembly by proper detailing of the junctions and the interfaces including the integration of windows and doors, you can develop and design and build an enhanced thermally efficient and air-tight building envelop."

This unitised and panelised approach combines effective interfaces and junction design with strong conceptual architecture.. "The winner in the future is going to be a holistic solution like the TEK system. It is a system which provides certainty of design and as-built performance which is key to delivering the Code for Sustainable Homes and low energy, carbon footprint housing.. The MMC systems do not rely on variable quality of site skills and therefore provide certainty of build quality. ne of the benefits of being in the building envelope business for the last twenty-five years is that Kingspan fully understands the benefits of the offsite manufacturing methodology, and how that provides build quality certainty on site. "We holistically bring that together as a solution and a system from foundation to ridge. This gives us a big advantage in the MMC agenda. We've got timber systems, steel systems, roof and floor systems, and the fa

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