Mr. Pat Kirwan:

From a design perspective, in respect of skills, we need to look at a number of areas. This is where the RIAI recently launched the design for manufacture and assembly, DfMA, guidance note, where we broke it down in terms of understanding design standardisation linking manufacturing, looking at sustainability and introducing digital delivery – bringing all of those three together.

It starts out with the designer. The designer designs and has a direct impact on what is being constructed. Do we know from a sustainability point of view what the impact of a particular construction material, system or build-up is? From a skills point of view, we have a significant skills deficit in respect of understanding the embodied carbon aspects. At the moment, if we look at the climate action plan, within residential construction, we have a target of 40% reduction in carbon emissions from 2018 to 2030. Whether that is achievable is open for debate. At the moment, we have no measurement methodology in place to say what we are doing. Where is that? How do we get that going?

Equally, in respect of digitisation, we have the build digital project, which needs to take hold and drive forward digitisation. There needs to be national standards and national upskilling, etc. For a number of years, the Charter Institute of Architectural Technologists, CIAT, and the National BIM Council have been calling for a building information modelling, BIM, mandate. That needs to be addressed. We need to understand from a designer’s point of view the impacts of standardisation and standardised designs that will optimise. We need to drive it forward in an efficient way that also addresses the aesthetic design. We are not reducing the quality of design; rather, we are improving it through standardisation.