Benefits of offsite construction
Offsite construction delivers fast, accurate and affordable solutions to permanent, temporary and relocatable building requirements. Pre-engineering in a controlled factory environment ensures consistent quality, shorter build times and less disruption on site. High levels of thermal and acoustic insulation that satisfy today's stringent Building Regulations can also be achieved.
Taking a modular approach
Modular buildings, designed and built by Terrapin, are enabling the delivery of additional family support services at Langney and Hailsham Children's Centres in East Sussex. The permanent timber-framed, brick-clad buildings were manufactured by Terrapin using quality-assured offsite construction techniques, resulting in fast, high quality solutions to the Centres' space requirements. The Langney Centre near Eastbourne is located in a 25m x 15m Terrapin module on the site of Langney Primary School. The flat roofed building is constructed from Terrapin's timber-framed panel system with a brickwork and cedar boarding external finish. The building provides flexible accommodation for a range of services, from child health to employment and training advice for parents.
Purpose-designed solutions
The Terrapin modular building at the Dunbar Drive Children's Centre in Hailsham is a pitched roof, timber-framed structure with an external finish of brickwork and fibre cement cladding panels. It comprises a multi-purpose room and crèche facilities, plus private family counselling areas. East Sussex County Council specified Terrapin for the projects because it offers top quality modular buildings that can be purpose-designed to meet individual needs. The building at Hailsham, for example, features movable internal partition walls so the space can be reconfigured to suit future requirements.
Flexible space
Terrapin has also provided timber framed, panel based permanent buildings for three new children's centres on the sites of existing primary schools in St Leonards-on-Sea, Polegate and Eastbourne. The buildings were manufactured by Terrapin in its Milton Keynes factory and delivered to the sites ready for erection. Each one comprises a multi-function main room that can be divided using a movable wall, as well as a kitchen, toilets and an office/consulting room.
Shorter lead times
The Silverdale Children's Centre, in St Leonards-on-Sea is an 11m by 14m brick clad structure with a flat roof. The West Rise Children's Centre in Eastbourne is a larger 22m by 13m flat roofed structure which incorporates a 30-place nursery and, while the Polegate Children's Centre is a 25m by 15m building, again brick clad, but this time with a pitched roof. Building offsite under controlled conditions allowed the highest levels of build quality and fit out to be achieved within a short lead time. The modular approach also means that the buildings can be reconfigured if future needs change.
Depth of expertise
Terrapin is a privately owned company which has been expanding and promoting the potential of modern methods of offsite construction since the 1940s. It grew with the development of modular classroom buildings throughout the baby boom and is now a leader in factory assembled building frames, panels and volumetric modules for projects such as hotels, prisons, hospitals, schools and apartments.
Terrapin is the first company to be accredited under Buildoffsite's new supplier registration scheme operated by Lloyd's Register. The scheme standardises all aspects of the offsite process and ensures best practice, offering clients confidence in the assured levels of competence, methodology and safe working of the accredited supplier.
