Futurebuild roundup.

It is the UK’s foremost exhibition exploring the future of construction and construction innovation. Whilst there we spoke to many of the disruptive innovators who are working to transform the industry and attended sessions on ground-breaking, sustainable projects, policy and innovative design.

Kiss House took over the Latham’s stand to unveil our construction system for low rise residential by showing sections of a real house in production and demonstrating many of the beautiful products supplied by Latham’s. Our system has been in development for several years and employs the DfMA expertise of global tech powered design experts Bryden Wood, plus the manufacturing innovation expertise of Easi Space.

Futurebuild 2022 centred on innovation and for us at Kiss House, connection. Emma Bradbury, Kiss House Design Consultant commented, “It was good to be back at a live show. I know how hard the Kiss House team has worked behind the scenes, and I felt proud to be a part of that. I loved sharing the work and dedication with the public and professionals within the Built Environment.” Connecting with others at the show was important for the whole Kiss House team — who all spent at least a day at the show each. Ellie Bright, Executive Assistant, said “It was incredible to meet potential Kiss House customers who had travelled to the show just to see us. It was lovely to meet our customers in person and talk through exciting potential projects face to face.”

It wasn’t just our team who were excited to be back at live events. We asked Sarah Virgo from Wood for Good for her thoughts, and she summed it up nicely, “back with a bang, lovely to catch up with people in real life again and get a buzz from talking about new ideas, hopes for a brighter and more sustainable future.” Certainly, the show was packed with great sessions featuring thought leaders from cutting edge organisations across the industry.

Sarah continued by saying it’s clear that, “there is a huge appetite from the built environment sector to build more sustainably, people are listening and willing to change.“ However, there is more to be done as ”there is also a lot of greenwashing to combat.” Ellie Bright, from the Kiss House team attended a talk on this issue; she said after “it still feels like we haven’t moved on enough, and that the general conversation about next generation building development still isn’t going far enough. It did not focus on how to reduce embodied carbon, just how not to increase it in new builds.”

Of course, there is always room for improvement — which is precisely why these events exist. A session we loved was a seminar hosted by the British Institute of Interior Design and was called “Making a difference: the importance of sustainable sourcing for interior design.” Emma Bradbury reflected, “we are at an exciting stage at Kiss House where we are sourcing materials and working with partners to fit out our interiors and offer our customers sustainable choices for customising the interiors of their homes. It was great to hear views and suggestions from members of BIID, and exciting to see examples of projects and hear their tips and hints for sustainable procurement in interior design.”

London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI) tweeted to say, “we enjoyed dropping in on the Architects Climate Action Network takeover today at Futurebuild and seeing the natural material demos!” This area was a favourite among the Kiss House team too. We were particularly taken by “their call to action to address the twin crises of climate and ecological breakdown.” Sarah Virgo’s highlight was the “Urban Tree Knowledge Hub and Woodland Trust” area. She said “being from the timber and forestry industry, naturally, I was drawn to it. It was nice to see people talking about trees at a built environment event, not just for their material, wood, but for the benefit of trees on streets, in parks, as part of our landscape. I’d love to see more people considering urban trees in their plans.”

Our collaborate with Latham’s caused a buzz and there was palpable frisson of excitement around the construction system. Stuart Devoil, Group Head of Marketing at Latham’s explained, “as our carbon calculator project developed, we realised we needed a “big bang” to bring it to the attention of not just the timber sector, but the sustainable construction audience in its entirety. Futurebuild was the obvious choice, but I didn’t want to opt for a plain old trade stand, as I think they are a little dated and sometimes even intimidating to visitors. I also liked the idea of building parts of a house from our top performing low carbon products, which could then act as the seminar theatre in which to showcase our carbon calculator. The team at Kiss House were keen to continue our relationship and could bring bona-fide knowledge on sustainable construction to our audience, so it seemed the obvious solution.” Read more about James Lathams and their innovative Carbon Calculator tool (for which we are ambassadors!) here.

Following the show we were delighted when Rob Ewen, Executive Director, The Line – NEOM, described our system on LinkedIn as “beautiful, efficient, effective, sustainable, simple — a building system designed for the future, deliverable today!” And Trudi Sully from the Construction Innovation Hub said, “These guys have been heads down and genius up during lockdown.” The Passivhaus Trust commented, “We were particularly impressed by Passivhaus Trust member Kiss House,” and the folks at Futurebuild selected us as a “standout” in their show round-up and awarded us the most sustainable stand award! You can read more here and here.

We had a great time at Futurebuild and can’t wait to get involved in more events in the future. Thank you again to everyone who participated in pulling the stand together and to all of you who came to visit us. We hope to see you again soon!

Best wishes,

Alice