The first homes built using Travis Perkins’ WholeHouse BIM platform for SME housebuilders have been completed in Leicestershire.
The UK’s largest builders’ merchant launched WholeHouse a year ago. The platform enables housebuilders building up to 250 units a year to visualise in 3D their designs of developments. These can be adapted, personalised and tailored to customer requirements.
WholeHouse generates designs, material schedules, detailed construction and marketing materials needed to plan, cost and build projects at the click of a button, according to Travis Perkins. Taking something of a smart library approach, WholeHouse allows housebuilders to create a house type from more than half a billion fully coordinated, tried-and-tested designs.
Bowbridge Homes used the platform to develop a pair of semi-detached properties on its site near Melton Mowbray. Using WholeHouse, Bowbridge Homes increased the properties’ thermal performance by trying new renewable heating packages without having to spend months changing designs and checking compliance with the latest regulations.
Ray Jordan, construction director at Bowbridge Homes, said: “The design coordination and information available ahead of construction has been a real advantage, from the Pre-Manufactured Utility Cupboard, allowing the air source heat pump to be installed more efficiently and effectively on site, all the way down to every door being the same size to simplify both site practices and the wider supply chain.”
Simplifying complexity
Further site starts involving WholeHouse are expected to begin later this year, Travis Perkins said.
Lee Jackson, director of WholeHouse, said: “Seeing the first home completed using the WholeHouse platform is a fantastic achievement. This platform was designed to simplify the complex process of building new homes, and now we can see its real-world impact.
“This platform puts the housebuilder in the driving seat. It enables them to simplify the traditionally complex process of planning, costing and building new homes at the click of a button.”
WholeHouse was nominated for Best Application of Technology at the Digital Construction Awards 2023.
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