Scottish homebuilder, MAKAR, is manufacturing an affordable home prototype that challenges conventional construction. As the Scottish Government faces the challenge of building 15,000 social houses a year, this timber-rich prototype is set to prove that social housing can support local economies through net zero healthy homes.
“We have developed a local solution to the nation-wide housing emergency. We need more homes, but they need to be better homes”, says MAKAR CEO, Neil Edgar, “With this prototype home we are demonstrating a unique and, frankly, blindingly obvious solution. Working with our local supply chains we can use Scottish timber to precisely manufacture high quality homegrown homes that have very low running costs of around £5 per week. They can be rapidly assembled anywhere in the country.
“Most new builds use materials with high concentration of chemicals in their building, like treated timber, that can be damaging to our health. They also rely on imported or high carbon building materials, like concrete block, pitching environmentalists against homebuilders, and with designs that can lead to damp and mouldy homes. We are trying to reverse this very real problem of low-quality homes built from a business-as-usual approach in a time of crisis.”
The prototype home, made possible by the support of twenty-five key suppliers, will be assembled on-site in just two weeks this November, outside MAKAR’s workshop. Natural timber panels are precision manufactured and assembled, dramatically reducing waste, with a scalability factor that surpasses on-site construction approaches.
This groundbreaking affordable home design challenges conventional design and construction approaches by showcasing:
- Net Zero affordable homes
- Rapid two-week assembly times (to Wind and Watertight), lowering costs for rural and island locations
- High energy efficiency, with modelled heating bills from £5 per week
- Scottish supply chains and low carbon miles
- Timber-rich healthy homes that avoid toxic materials
MAKAR’s home-grown home is being manufactured to demonstrate a transformative approach to social homebuilding across the UK, as a report from Shelter, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Scotland suggests the Scottish government must deliver more than 15,000 homes a year to tackle the housing crisis.