Defence

Faber Maunsell is committed to providing well-designed, cost-effective facilities for the Armed Forces. Adaptability, best practice and sustainable development are central to our approach.

We have a long and distinguished track record in the engineering design of facilities for the UK armed forces.

Procurement of building services for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been refocused under the government’s Strategic Defence Review, originally published in 2000, and the 2006 Defence Estate Strategy. 

These policy documents made it clear that the MoD’s aim is “to have an estate of the right size and quality to support the delivery of defence capability, that is managed and developed effectively in line with acknowledged best practice, and is sensitive to social and environmental considerations”.

Our aim is to help to fulfil that vision, by designing facilities that are necessary to support each of the services in their difficult role. We are committed to sustainability and best practice. We understand the need to take stakeholders’ opinions into account. And we recognise the importance of delivering value for money.

For example, our recent project work includes all aspects of design for Project MoDEL, the £140 million scheme to relocate various service units into RAF Northolt, thereby freeing up other sites for development. This has involved the design of new accommodation units, workshops, offices, aircraft hangars, welfare facilities and catering facilities. 

Embracing the new approach:

We have embraced the MoD’s move to Prime Contracting. We believe that the establishment of open business systems provides a culture whereby best value solutions based on sustainability and through life costing are implemented.

We also believe that this approach will address the main challenges facing the sector, as the defence estate strives to achieve ‘right sizing’, while funding remains uncertain and a shortage of skilled labour forces contractors to pre-fabricate components off-site.

We are currently meeting these challenges by being adaptable and willing to implement changes in a cost effective manner, as shown by our engagement in Prime Contracting.

We are at the forefront of development of prefabricated solutions. As evidence, we would cite our development programme with Unite, the largest single provider of student accommodation in the UK. Unite uses off-site methods to construct buildings that are mostly in excess of five storeys. These techniques can be transferred directly to meet the need for defence-related accommodation and offices.

For more information please contact Neil Marks.