projects





1. RESEARCH COLLABORATION ON REMOTE HOUSING CONSTRUCTION BOOSTED BY GOVERNMENT FUNDING ALLOCATION
PROJECT OVERVIEW

iBuild will be the principal industrial partner for an Australia Research Council-funded project to develop a building assembly system for the construction of housing in distant areas with difficult climates, in conjunction with three Australian universities.

The research teams from Monash University, University of New South Wales, and Western Sydney University, as well as iBuild and other industry partners, will look into using fiber reinforced composites, a lightweight and durable material, for the construction of housing in remote areas with funding from the Australian Government through ARC.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The project team will seek to develop a building assembly system for the construction of housing in remote areas with difficult climates using fibre reinforced composites, a lightweight and durable material. The project team will investigate developing BIM-based design and construction methodologies to aid industrial manufacturing and end-user practices.

REMOTE HOUSING NEEDS

In many remote areas in Australia, adequate and suitable housing remains an issue. There is still a scarcity of affordable homes and enough support services. Many Indigenous communities continue to suffer from overcrowding and poor living conditions. The importance and severity of the problem has been highlighted by the growing population and the present rate of house supply in rural communities. Remote housing and resourcing have already been deemed key concerns for many nations, as the global population is predicted to expand from 6.9 billion in 2010 to 9.6 billion by 2050.

CHALLENGES IN REMOTE HOUSING CONSTRUCTION

The building sector must overcome substantial hurdles and challenges when constructing housing in rural areas. Because of the high expenses of transporting or leasing in these areas, large gear or equipment (such as a crane) for construction may be limited or even unavailable.

As a result, heavyweight construction materials like concrete and hot rolled steel are either left out of designs or added at a high expense. Extreme humidity, mineral content of the air, and diurnal temperature range combine in many rural areas of Australia to provide hostile settings for building materials. In such settings, thin-walled steel and timber used in traditional dwellings suffer rapid rates of material degradation and structural characteristics change, making them dangerous and requiring replacement far before their average service life. Building efforts in remote areas face additional challenges in terms of labour and time.As a result of their geographic setting and long distance from suppliers, isolated locations face additional labour and time constraints when it comes to construction. Traditional craft-based labor-intensive construction methodologies and wet-in-wet techniques are further limited by these limits.

FUNDING SUPPORT FROM FEDERAL GOVERNMENT