Over the past two decades our passion for design-led eco-buildings has grown. From our roots crafting beautiful bespoke beach lodges with eco-conscious materials to today specialising in building sustainable, high-end homes in Structural Insulated Panels, we thrive on pushing the boundaries of innovation in this sector.
With exceptional expertise and in-depth knowledge, our team designs resilient, low-impact structures from scratch or to your own specification. If a project has been designed with traditional construction methods in mind (eg. cavity walls), we can easily re-engineer the drawings to create a more sustainable SIPs structure often winning increased internal floorspace in the process.
We produce our SIPs in-house rather than buying them in from bigger companies – to find out more please visit our manufacturing page.
Design
With a full understanding of SIPs design, we know how to specify the structural elements for any project, so we only ever need to make minor amends when reviewing the plans with our qualified structural engineers and supply partners. This helps keep your project on track too.
SIP optimisation
We love nothing more than helping our clients design with SIPs in mind. This allows your project to achieve several efficiencies across design, production, installation and ultimately your overall budget. Our deep understanding of the SIP build system means we can support you and your architect specifying the structural elements for any project, meaning we only ever need to make minor amends when reviewing the plans with our qualified structural engineers.
One major design aspect is to consider the 2.44m x 1.22m and/or 2.99m x 1.22m size of the panels – for example typically it makes sense to design walls to 2.44m up from DPC height on ground floor to the underside of the first floor cassette, and first/second floors to repeat the same with a 2.44m floor to ceiling height.
For more information on how our SIPs fit together please download our guide here.
To see an example project drawing pack take a look at our download here: Construction drawing pack
The Design Process
The below flowchart is applicable to most residential projects below 200msq floor space. Larger projects, multi-unit projects or particularly complex designs may require additional time allocated to each stage.
Design lead-in
For us to manufacture all the components in our scope of works we will need you or your Architect to provide us with a detailed set of drawings, showing elevations, plans and the outline of the foundations that we should be working to, these will be required in an accurately scaled CAD format. We also require window and door schedules for us to create the exact openings required. All this will have been discussed at our project lead-in meeting.
Once we have received the above drawings and door and window schedules, we will be able to allocate you a date for installation on site and will commence the design and engineering of the SIPs structure.
During this stage our Project Manager will keep in regular contact with you to check how you are progressing with your site preparations and foundation stage.
Initial design and engineering stage : 2-3 weeks
Our engineers will now produce a set of mark-ups, illustrating point and line loads from the SIPs structure to inform your groundworks engineer when designing your foundations.
We will also produce a set of dimensioned plans and elevations of the SIPs structure which we will ask you to sign-off against. Specifically, these will confirm that – allowing for any additional build-up of finishes (cladding, roofing etc) – this will sit within your planning constraints, that all door and window openings are suitably sized and positioned and that internal wall and floor positions are correct.
Client approval of design and sign-off : 1 week
Following the initial design and engineering stage, we allow one week for you to review the drawings issued and for us to make any amendments that are required. If you are in a position where you are unable to confirm the amends within the allocated timeslot, please be aware that the site installation date will be at risk of slippage, and this could result in additional costs to you as the client as a result of any costs we incur.
SIPs manufacture design stage : 2-3 weeks
Following your approval on the drawings we will proceed to detail your project as a set of SIP production drawings and ensure all the necessary manufacturing information is prepared and ready for us to produce the SIP components in our workshop ready to be delivered to site.
An example extract from a project drawing pack can be seen here: Construction drawing pack
