Project summary

Project title

Rapid Rebuild Ukraine

Project lead

Prof Konstantinos Daniel Tsavdaridis

Website

https://rapidrebuildukraine.com/

In collaboration with:

The Steel Construction Institute (SCI)

METEK

University of Birmingham

The initiative RapidRebuildUkraine is aimed at building capabilities and manufacturing infrastructure in modular construction in Ukraine, including pilot projects and tests to satisfy Ukrainian functionality requirements and to demonstrate the rapid building process.

The rapid re-building of Ukraine will require an unprecedented scale of construction of housing and residential buildings using new technologies based on off-site manufacture, and modular construction in particular. This will require construction of large regional factories each capable of producing up to 30,000 modules a year with an Innovation Hub that drives the design, automated manufacture and procurement process. This manufacturing output is required on a scale not seen in Europe and Ukraine will lead the way in this innovative technology.

Rapid Reconstruction

‘Ukraine Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment’ by World Bank/EU (second report of March 2023): 1.4 million housing and residential units are damaged, of which 500,000 are completely destroyed. It is estimated by the World Bank that the housing rebuild programme will be $70 billion. This will require re-building on a huge and rapid scale to much higher quality.

Housing Needs

Of the 500,000+ new housing and residential units required in Ukraine, 20 to 30% could be in modular form and each house or apartment comprises 2 to 4 modules. The total production requirement over 5 years would be 60,000 to 80,000 modular units a year and this would require construction and setting up of 2 to 4 advanced regional factories to serve the most affected Oblasts.

A 3 to 4 storey modular building consisting of 60 to 80 modules would take only 6 to 8 weeks to manufacture and construct, provided the factory infrastructure is set up first. An advanced regional factory to produce modules could be 50,000 m2 in floor area and should be within 200 km of the main areas of housing need. It would require a suitable level of automation and Building Information systems (BIM) that would be at the heart of the design, manufacturing, construction and facilities management process. The buildings would have safe refuge areas and would aim to be 'nearly net zero' in terms of their energy strategy.

Our group of specialists and academics in the field of modular construction is able to provide the required expertise to assist Ukraine in this World-leading initiative.