A History of 2M & 3M
Oxford Method was created in 1961 by the Regional Architect of the Oxford Hospital Board. His report in 1963 entitled 'Quicker Building in the Oxford Region' was set out to project the needs of a system and advocate its advantages. To gain support by the Board the report was quite detailed and makes interesting reading:
"The experience of most of us who have been concerned with hospital building over the last decade has been that in the case of the larger projects anything up to seven years can elapse between the time when the scheme is first considered and the time when the first patient is admitted with the result that before the planning principles on which the hospital was designed can be put into practice some at least of them are inevitably out of date.
Our aim was to reduce this time lag. The setting up of the project items helped in the preparation of the "brief", which is in effect the written problem which the architect solves in the form of a sketch plan. The preparation of the brief and the preparation of the sketch plan, particularly on its functional aspect, demand careful thought on each individual scheme; on the correct statement of the problem and the successful solving of it depend the eventual success of the hospital. Although we felt that the time spent on the brief and the sketch plan might be shortened we though that this should be the subject of a separate investigation: we, as architects, engineers and quantity surveyors, should concern ourselves particularly with a study of the method of preparing working drawings (the drawings from which a building is erected), bills of quantities and specifications; with devising a simpler method of construction, and in examining the advantages of using standard component parts. I should make it clear at once that the use of standard components does not mean standardised building. Nowhere will be found any such thing as a standard building: the use of standard components permits not nine or ninety-nine variations in building design but an almost infinite variety. The use of standard parts means that much of the building can be manufactured off the site and erection on the site is faster.
We also looked at the actual erection of buildings.
The building industry itself is entering a period of change and is turning from the manufacture of complete buildings on open sites to the manufacture of component parts in factories and their assembly on the site. This new approach is dictated in part by the great expansion in the building programme generally and the shortage of labour in the building industry. It is plain that we must make the best us of the labour, both professional and construction, we have. If we are to complete our large building programme we must also take account of the need for better working conditions, long-term employment and a steady wage packet. When the open site is used for manufacturing the building bad weather stops work and wages drop to the "guaranteed week" level with obvious effects on the wage earner's family.
For three reasons then - quicker completion of the building programme, greater productivity in the professional office, and quicker construction and better conditions on the site - we should turn to new methods. First we need a critical analysis of all work concerned with the building, both design and construction, to make sure that variety reduction is practised throughout. At design stage we must accept a constructional discipline, that is, buildings must be designed on a common dimension. We can then make use of standard components designed for use in any building. Economy also results on the constructional drawing side of the operation since the careful constructional design of a particular component part (for instance, part of a wall complete with door frame, door, door handles, electric wiring and switches) need be done only once although used again and again. There is the added advantage that the drawing would be interpreted by a skilled pattern maker instead of being read a number of times and perhaps in different ways by a variety of workers on the site. Manufacture in quantity reduces costs and for this reason firm programmes of work should be agreed with the manufacturers.
In this way we come nearer to manufacturing a building under controlled physical conditions; the components are made in factories, the site is used for assembly. Better working conditions are provided and maximum output is more likely to be achieved. Obviously before the components can be assembled site works and site preparation must be done but these should be don in the most efficient way with the minimum call on skilled labour; in fact, by machine.
Buildings erected on the "factory-made, site-assembled" method should be so designed that the work to be done on the site can, as far as possible, be done under cover, thus providing better working conditions. This means that after the site works and foundations are completed we erect the frame and roof first. It also means that we are beginning to erect as well as manufacture, under cover.
All this affects the building industry as a whole. The particular problem confronting the Oxford Regional Hospital Board was the planning and construction of their hospital development programme amounting to some £30 million over a period of ten years. So as to take advantage of new principles of planning and constructions the Board decided to set up a special research and development group of architects, quantity surveyors, and structure, mechanical and electrical engineers; working, and this is an important point, as a team. Some of the members were on the Board's own staff, others were private consultants. The team's terms of reference were to devise a method of construction which would enable productivity to be raised in the professional office, would take account of changing trends in the building industry, would meet the conditions required in hospital buildings and would the Board's programme built.
The dimensional discipline is one of the most important factors in achieving the team's target. The dimension chosen should be one that can be used nationally - in fact that cited by the Ministry of Public Buildings and works in pamphlet D.C.I., namely, one foot increments in the size of all rooms with a four inch module or its multiples for the component parts. In the early stages of the investigation the sizes of factory-made materials already available in this country were a real consideration and most of these are produced in one, two or four foot sizes. This particularly applies to such items as ceiling and wall panels and also to the products of the steel industry where few rolling mills produced widths greater than four feet. The suggested dimension had the added advantage that it was familiar to workers on the site.
Dimensional disciplines have been used before in planning buildings and were often chosen to fit pre-determined areas of rooms, but since the Oxford Board were thinking in terms of constructional design, the discipline applied in three dimensions. We felt it was important not to develop a closed system which could be applied to only one method of building, and so as to provide for different methods we decided to contain the structural members (normally the frame, but could be load-bearing brickwork) in a narrow strip within the grid. The effect of the strip is to produce a tartan pattern over the whole plan. The width of the strips is in multiples of four inches and can accommodate a steel or concrete frame or load-bearing brickwork. The distances between strips are always multiples of one foot (in the case of hospital buildings they are ten feet apart) thus reducing the variety of infilling units whether external walls or internal partitions.
Two important considerations affected the materials to be used both for the main structure and the infilling panels: the first, offsite manufacture of components entailed transport to the site - we needed maximum square foot coverage with minimum weight. Secondly, the method of construction required precision in sizes; we needed materials in which fine tolerances could be achieved. The materials which would meet these requirements were metals and plastics. To date we have used a steel frame with metal roof decking, metal ceilings and metal outside wall units. Internal partitions are of wallboard, workshop-made and supplied with both faces complete and ready for assembly. All component parts of the building including doors, door linings, frames, cupboards, windows, have been considered in detail and variety reduction practised, the eventual aim being to manufacture internal wall units incorporating the necessary services and complete with doors.
In thinking of hospital buildings it is important to appreciate that at least one-third of the work consists of mechanical and electrical engineering. These two services, then, should be rationalised along with the rest of the building, pre-planned and as far as possible prefabricated at the same time as the building components. If the outlets for services are pre-planned so that switches, wall lights etc. are always in the same relative position on the wall units, and full use is made of templates in cutting spaces for the outlets, the outlets can be provided in the prefabricated building components before they arrive on site with the knowledge that they cannot be in the wrong position.
The method of building which I have outlined has real advantages. As we all know, medical science and management methods advance, with consequent need to make changes within the buildings and it is important that this future need should be recognised in the functional design of a hospital. This method, however, allows for considerable (not complete) changes without undue disruption or inconvenience to the occupants of the building, and the reason is this - the building is structurally sound without the internal partitions and floors, which are put in afterwards, and it will remain so even if the partitions are removed or their position changed. The factors which disallow complete change are the main vertical and horizontal circulation spaces for staff and patients in the shape of lifts and staircases, and circulation of the main mechanical, electrical and ventilating services and disposal pipes. These last can, however, be grouped in a few short vertical ducts and in the spaces between floor and ceiling thus giving the maximum uninterrupted space on the various floors, the only divisions being non-load-bearing partitions and screens.
To return to the site, if we are to obtain the fullest advantage of this method of building it is important to reduce the time spent on site works. Simple shapes should be chosen and external trenching for drains and services should be reduced to a minimum; for two reasons, one, that it is better to have the drains and engineering services, apart from the connections to the public mains, inside the building where they can be installed regardless of the weather, and two, that otherwise they inhibit the use of mechanical plant in the erection of the building. Excavation should be done mechanically and a concrete slab should be laid over the site on which the building is to stand, both as a help in setting out and in the erection of the steel frame, and also to provide a platform from which to work. This is not unlike the setting-up of the main ribs of a ship in a dockyard in that this method of building is almost an engineering job and a clean clear site helps a great deal in its successful completion. After the frame and roof have been erected drain work (in either metal or plastic) is laid above the concrete slab, thus eliminating trench digging on the site except for connections to main services. Such connections should all run through one trench or duct. Drains, can to a great extent, be prefabricated - the working conditions of the drain layer are improved, and, a further advantage, the mobile crane can be brought right up to the point of erection of the frame, roof and external wall panels.
This rationalisation of the design and erection of buildings makes it
possible to place advance orders for component parts, since quantities
can be assess on a year's programme rather than on individual schemes.
A programme of orders is more attractive to manufacturers and should
result in reductions in cost. Moreover it should overcome at least some
of the delays due to non-delivery of materials which constantly occurs
on projects built by traditional methods."
W. J. Jobson - Quicker Building in the Oxford Region
In 1965 the magazine Modular Quarterly devoted a large section of its publication to the development of the system and reported the work since the report of 1963. In the intervening time a large workload had developed and the system had found that quicker building had become a major issue. The magazine highlights this and reported it as follows:
"The Oxford Regional Hospital Board, like all other Regional boards, has been confronted with the problem of implementing a ten-year programme within the time and labour resources available, and it accepted three years ago the recommendations of its Regional Architect, W. J. Dobson, E.R.C., F.R.I.B.A., to set up a Research and Development team within the Regional Architect's Department to investigate quicker methods of building.
The Research and Development Unit as composed of architects, engineers, structural consultant and quantity surveyors, with the architect coordinating the work of the whole team.
Modular coordination was accepted as one of the tools that were to help the team in evolving a quicker method of building based on the maximum use of industrialised components.
The R and D Unit set itself a Main Brief which governed the work and
scope of the programme and it was to be related to the following types
of hospital buildings:
1.0 CLINICAL: Ward buildings, maternity units, operating theatres, laboratories,
clinics, outpatient departments, etc.
2.0 DOMESTIC: Nurses' homes, administrative offices, dining-rooms, staff quarters,
lecture rooms, etc.
3.0 INDUSTRIAL: Laundries, boiler houses, kitchens, food and central stores,
workshops, garages, etc.
The outcome of the exploration was to refer to, first, single-storey buildings
and up to three storeys and, secondly, the multistorey buildings."
Jan W Sliwa Ing.Dipl.Arch.A.R.I.B.A.
Following the article in Modular Quarterly interest grew and in February and November of 1965 The Architects Journal produced publications referring to it as 'The Oxford Method'. With the first building constructed in 1964 it had come of age. The February issue spurred on the enthusiasm of the work and gave the following report:
"Although there has been a great deal of talk about the need to speed up the process of hospital building, very little positive action has been taken. There are few regional boards which seem both willing and able to do more than pay lip service to the rationalisation of design and construction techniques and those who have actually established new methods may, quite literally, be counted on fewer fingers than there are on one hand.
This failure of initiative is no doubt due in part to a variety of administrative, technical and political reasons outside the control of the architect - but only in part; for quite clearly, given confident architectural leadership, under which the man on the job is given both adequate professional responsibility and support, there is no doubt that some progress can be made.
A good case in point in the Oxford Regional Hospital Board which has been responsible for some of the best examples of post-war hospital building. Although the board's manpower resources are modest (it covers one of the smallest regions) it has been able to develop over the last couple of years an industrialised method of construction applicable to a wide variety of hospital and ancillary buildings. It is intended that all the work in the region including that carried out by private architects, should in future be based on the 'Oxford Method' as it has been named.
Although it is not the main purpose of this appraisal to discuss the
organisation of development groups, it seems work mentioned - in view
of the adverse criticism of the building industry and because many hospital
board authorities still seem to believe that development work on building
is an unnecessary extravagance - that the initial work on the development
of the Oxford Method has not required a large professional establishment
engaged on 'unproductive' research. It has, however, been a successful
example of collaboration between a small permanent architectural research
and development team at the board's offices and a multi-discipline group
which included private structural and mechanical engineering consultants.
Before starting to develop its own method, the group carried out an investigation
into the possibility of using some of the national commercial systems
of construction. None of these was found to be sufficiently flexible
in design and most would have required major adjustments if they were
to satisfy the range of functional and user requirements of the hospital
programme."
Architects Journal Information Library February 1965
By November 1965 work had progressed and the system had become more refined. The Architects Journal of November 1965 again reported the progress and reported the flexibility in what was being attempted.
"It is common knowledge that one of the chief drawbacks to most building systems is the fact that any project carried out in a particular system tends to look much the same - irrespective of size, function and location - as any other project in the same system. Various technical, economic and aesthetic factors contribute to this sameness but fundamentally it is the result of applying a too restrictive dimensional discipline - a discipline which, more often than not, involves adherence to a centre line concept of design and where components are both sized and located strictly in relation to a large planning grid.
The disadvantages of this discipline are slowly becoming more generally realised and it is not without significance that the latest developments are being referred to as 'methods' rather than 'systems'; eg South-west Consortium for Method Building; grid method; Oxford method. The common link between these is that, with varying degrees of emphasis, they are all based on the modular (4in) method of dimensional co-ordination which, while providing a basis for standardisation and variety reduction, nevertheless facilitates a much greater design flexibility.
The Oxford method is still in an early stage of development and no architectural
breakthroughs have yet been achieved, but a brief comparison of the first
two projects - maternity unit at Henley and the offices under review
--clearly indicates that the method has an inherent flexibility and is
capable of variety in architectural expression."
Architects Journal Information Library November 1965
Publication of the Method followed in various journals. Hospital Management Planning and Equipment Research and Development Department again outlined the statement made in the very first publication of 1963 by the Regional Architect.
"In order to speed up the time taken to design and build projects in their building programme, the Oxford Regional Hospital Board, in 1961, set up a team of architects, services engineers, structural engineers and quantity surveyors to investigate means of shortening the processes without sacrificing standard or planning requirements.
As a result of their investigation the team has evolved a developing method of building which is based on dimensional co-ordination, maximum prefabrication of components, rapid 'dry' construction (leading to early completion of the shell of the building and indoor building conditions thereafter) and the re-use of detailed construction drawings, specifications and other contract information from project to project. As far as possible components are manufactured off the site, under controlled factor conditions.
The regional architect and the team are convinced that this approach
to building does not sterilise the quality of the architecture but does,
rather, give the architect adequate time to consider his design fully
and organise the components in the most satisfactory and efficient manner.
In preparing the component ranges care has been taken to keep the units
simple to preserve as much flexibility of interpretation for the building
designer as possible."
The Oxford Method of hospital building - A. L. Arschavir A.R.I.B.A. A.M.T.P.I.
British Hospital Journal and Social Services Review, published in December 1969 another article headed 'The Oxford Method and the Oxford Look'. The interest was good for the future of the system. In 1971 a detailed brochure was produced and received the foreword by the Chairman of the Board. The Method was now well established. One passage from the publication which referred to the birth of the NHS and the development is found in the opening introduction:
"One of the main objectives of the NHS is clearly set out in Part II of the Act of 1946, which defined the Minister's duty in relation to hospital and specialist services as 'the provision of accommodation and services to such extent as he considers necessary to meet all reasonable requirements'.
Before the appointed day hospital provision had been built up by different authorities over many years, and the buildings where were taken over were, for the most part, out of date both in design and fabric. As a result of the war, and in anticipation of transfer to the state, very little maintenance or modernisation work had been undertaken for a considerable period and the buildings were therefore dilapidated as well. The 'provision of accommodation' must therefore be assessed against this background.
There was plainly a considerable backlog of work to be undertaken in 1948, but because of the rigours of the post-war economy, the rehabilitation work was slow to get under way. The programme was enormous but the resources - men, money and materials - were limited. Again, because of the 10 year pause in hospital building during the war and post-war period, very little research had been done in defining up-to-date standards of provision or in assessing the changing medical needs. Social, population and technological changes were taking place so rapidly that it was difficult to plan in advance and the lack of procedures to formulate requirements, lack of knowledge of modern standards, and the limitations of the traditional building processes, could meant that hospitals were out of date before they were completed.
Progress in providing new replacement accommodation was therefore slow during the first decade or so of the NHS, but with the accumulation of expertise, results of research into modern standards of health provision, production of Building Notes by the then Ministry of Health setting out precise standards, and above all with the increasing availability of additional resources, it became possible to accelerate the capital building programme. It was against this background of rapid advance in medical planning, and the needs for speed and flexibility, that the Oxford Method was evolved."
In 1972 Oxford Method was used further afield. In March a partnership with a building services company made it possible for the system to be constructed outside the boundaries of the Oxford Health Authority. A rather flattering press release welded together the alignment with the following comments:
"We are particularly proud to become associated with the Oxford Building
Method which so far as we are aware is the only system in the world which has
been designed specifically for Hospital use although the system has been and
will no doubt further be used on various other types of building including computer
buildings, offices etc.
The Oxford Method is a highly sophisticated system with a much higher
degree of component pre-fabrication than any other building methods.
This is a feature which has obvious advantages in terms of rationalisation
of component production with resultant cost benefits and rationalisation
of the one site erection process."
CED Building Services - 15 March 1972
The real changes were reported later in the statement:
"It is particularly appropriate that this time should have been chosen for C.E.D. Building Services to be appointed as the licensee for the use of the system outside the Oxford Regional Board Area, since it has only recently been announced by the Minister that there is to be a considerable increase in the volume of hospital building over the next five years and that the total volume of building be executed during this period is in the region of £800.million.
C.E.D. are already carrying out several contracts for various Hospital
Boards throughout the UK and are currently involved in the pre-contract
stages of a scheme with the Oxford Regional Board using the Oxford Building
Method. We hope that we shall have the opportunity of using the Oxford
Method not only on further Oxford Board contract, but with other boards
in the country alongside the various other systems and methods being
employed by the DHSS about the various systems which are available."
CED Building Services - 15 March 1972
The year had seen a change in the management of Oxford Method. It was no longer the prize of the Oxford Board. An article in Architect and Builder December 1972 referred to it as being used in Britain and overseas and mentioned the new approach by reporting a new slant on things that were happening and the future of the health service.
"Nor is the client left with just a "turn-key" project for if required the CED Building Services will provide medical, nursing, technical and administrative staff to run the hospital in its initial stage, train the local team in running it and leave it after a year or two as a fully working unit.
In this way the expense of design and running of the hospital complex
becomes less of a burden on the national resources, especially important
to developing countries. It is a comprehensive solution which ensures
that the needs of local population are satisfied economically, for the
running costs and maintenance factor of equipment, repair and availability
of replacement are all considered during the design, construction and
running of the hospital."
Architect and Builder - December 1972 - Jan Sliwa Ing.Dipl.Arch., ARIBA
Computers enter the design stage
The Oxford Method was now well established with many buildings being constructed. Papers were being presented to promote the system and in 1972 a reference to OXSYS, a computer aided design system was being developed and referred to. At a conference in York the Regional Architect outlined the use of OXSYS as follows:
"The fundamental concept of OXSYS is to replace these drawings by an alternative
image of the building. This image is stored, not on paper, but in the memory
of a computer. This allows the ordinary type of applications program to be run
without any effort of preparing data. As the computer has a complete image of
the building, it is only a matter of providing an interface program to select
the relevant data and hand it over to the applications program. On the conventional
basis an architect might measure up a room, run a daylight prediction program,
find that the window was too small, and enlarge it by modifying his drawing.
With a computerised building image the daylight program could be designed so
as to automatically increase the size of the window."
E. M. Jones
In 1974 an alternative to the Oxford Method was produced by the DHSS. They had a system they called Harness. Boards were under considerable pressure to use it and as the report said it would be surprising if the DHSS having spent well over a million pounds on its own approach to the standardisation of a design and construction would actively support a competitor. The Oxford Method proceeded to defend its case and in a report in October 74 outlined the following in its support:
"There is hard evidence that use of Oxford Method does result in significant savings in design time which will be further increased with the use of CAD. Perhaps the last building planned to use the Method and the sections of the CAD programme so far available will best illustrate this:
2 January 1974 sketch plans started on preliminary brief, alternatives
investigated on computer, sketch plan and brief finalised
19 February 1974 working drawings started
20 May 1974 bills of quantities started
22 July 1974 tenders invited
2 September 1974 tenders in
23 September 1974 start on site date agreed, contract period 10½ months
estimated cost £249,700, tender £233,515
A contributory factor to the speed with which this project progressed was that the DHSS administrative procedures were eliminated as a result of it being a non-exchequer scheme being financed by the Cancer Research Foundation. The Oxford Method solution will thus enable patients to be admitted to this unit by the time it would take a traditional building to start on site.
There is therefore ample evidence that Oxford Method does achieve quicker
building but disruptions from strikes, shortages, and three day weeks,
do inevitably affect system building too."
Oxford Regional Health Authority - 4 October 1974
With the introduction of management services the design of hospital building
was taken up by outside architectural practices and in 1976 Battle Hospital
was opened as the first major hospital to be designed and built by others.
Design of external panels were changed although the principle of construction
was maintained. Brochures by both architect and managing contractor were
produced to forward their company's image.
In 1976 Oxford Method changes were being introduced. The 2M and 3M systems had been replaced with the 6M. The difference related to the strip of tiles and the width of the column casing called a Tartan, 2M being 8" and 3M being one foot, or by now 300 mm, and no Tartan in the 6M system. Other changes were also being introduced and these are the subject of a separate section. Twenty years on from 1961 Oxford Method was still being developed. The appearance had changed with the introduction of revised cladding and window system. Internally materials had also changed but the aims and aspirations of pioneers had not which was born out in a Regional Architect's report in 1981 in which he made the opening comments in a report headed 'The Design of a Complex Building using an Integrated CAD System'.
"What is it really like to develop and use a large integrated computer aided
design system to design an extensive complex building?
Much has been written on the subject of CAD applied to building design. But does the reality bear any resemblance to the theory? What are the effects of time and scale on the process? Are the claims for CAD justified and are the benefits the ones which were expected?
The new District General Hospital at Milton Keynes in the UK is probably
the first major building in the world to be designed using such a system.
Now under construction on site it has been a fertile and rewarding experience.
In comparison with what was originally expected, the outcome has in many
cases been quite exciting, in a few cases disappointing, but in a number
of instances the outcome has been very surprisingly different from the
original aspiration. Overall the result marks a very substantial step
forward in the process of designing complex buildings."
E. M. Jones - 1981
By 1983 Oxford Method buildings had been constructed at 24 hospitals in the Oxford Region in 2M and 3M. Further hospitals had been built under licence in other countries and some individual buildings in the north of Britain. Continued development of the Method changed many details. Units were built at a further four hospitals before managing consultants became a reality and slowly others took over the production and management of the building.
By 1990 the Regional Estates Department had seen many changes. Staff reductions had taken the heart out of the system and by 1995 the life of the Estates Department came to an end. The vision of 1961 had been achieved. The Regional Estates Department had led the way to achieve its goal for which it should always be justly proud.
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