In pod we trust

Whether or not you think buyers will be attracted by the prospect of wallowing in a bubble bath in a bathroom designed by the country’s most famous living architect, there’s no doubting that the smallest room in London’s Montevetro apartment scheme is making a big splash. Richard Rogers Partnership’s squeaky clean concept design is actually built in the factory of a Danish prefabricated bathroom manufacturer and arrives at the Battersea site fully fitted with everything from its coloured glass wall panels to the soap dish.

So impressed is Montevetro’s developer, Taylor Woodrow Capital Developments, with the prefab approach it is looking to use similar pod bathrooms in the first phase of the 1000 apartments it is masterminding as a consortium partner in Greenwich’s much-delayed Millennium Village. “If we can do it we will,” says Sam Chapman, the developer’s marketing manager. “It would help us meet performance targets for the scheme, it’s quick, and the massive scale of development helps make it viable, although we are looking at a different finish - possibly timber decked flooring and mosaic tile - and we may use a UK manufacturer. Pods are the way forward. I think they’ll become commonplace for big schemes.”

Montevetro’s 100 apartments provided a test of technology, with more than 200 pods installed last winter. “We had the bathrooms manufactured mainly to get quality of workmanship, given that the internal finishes are to Rogers’ design quality,” says Peter Chapman, director with the developer. They also posed a challenge for manufacturer EJ Badekabiner, a specialist in bathrooms for student accommodation and hotels, as it had to work in unfamiliar materials like limestone, and produce the finish needed to satisfy London’s sophisticated apartment market.

All pods coming off EJ Badekabiner’s production line have concrete floor trays, precast concrete walls and double stressed skin plywood lids. Montevetro’s are up to 3.5 m long by 2.3 m wide and 2.6 m high, and have three types of internal specification. Master bathrooms have mirror and etched glass wall panels, coloured glass shower and bath panels, and limestone floor. Second bathrooms have mosaic tile walls and bath panels and ceramic tiled floor. Third bathrooms have etched and mirror glass wall panels with mosaic tiling, and limestone floors. Buyers signing within six to eight weeks before pods were manufactured had a choice of five wall panel colours.

Once delivered to Taylor Woodrow Construction’s site, pods were craned up the side of the not-yet clad building and slid along concrete floor slabs into place, an operation that took around 20 minutes per bathroom. Peter Chapman’s verdict on the process? “It is a slight disadvantage that manufacture takes place very early, limiting buyer choice, and we did have difficulty with wind restricting the use of tower cranes, but it has definitely been worthwhile. It has given us the quality we hoped for. The costs are about on a par with building in situ. We would use it again where the building lent itself to it. You have to have repetition, a building where pods can be slid in from the side, and verticality to connect services to vertical rising stacks.” Chris Eisner, director with Montevetro’s co-architect, Hurley, Robertson and Associates says: “It requires a rational approach. If you introduce change, then it is not industrialised.” Hence, around 25 bathrooms with major buyer-specified variations will be built on site, but the factory-fresh product will serve as a benchmark and maybe a warning to traditional site trades.