10015548Homegrown Bio-Offsite Manufactured (Bio-OSM) Accelerator - Phase 2ClosedSmall Business Research InitiativeInnovate UKThe UK has the renewable natural resource, internationally recognised expertise, and technical capabilities necessary to be at the forefront of a new approach to delivering a sustainable and resilient built environment in response to the COVID-19 recovery ("**build back better**"), Brexit, the declared climate emergency, and UN Sustainable Development Goals. This project represents the culmination of several years of collaborative research between project partners into the feasibility of homegrown mass timber components. Core outputs are to design, engineer, manufacture, construct and evaluate the homegrown mass timber elements of a two-storey modular home, whilst simultaneously evidencing a business case for the UK's first mass timber manufacturing facility to increase both the use and value of the UK's natural timber resource. The project will harness well-established international developments in construction technology and align them with societal and financial shifts in UK housing design, together with the move towards offsite manufacture of buildings, as demonstrated by the UK Government's 2017 "**presumption in favour of offsite**", specifically focussing on housing. Despite the global market shift in the appetite for mass timber products, no commercial manufacturing facilities exist in the UK. With increasing demand for the product based on benefits such as its overall life-cycle costs, reduced wastage, increased construction and delivery speed, health and wellbeing benefits and building fabric performance, there is an immediate requirement to investigate optimal mass timber solutions from a UK context. The project objective is to validate homegrown mass timber construction products from a mechanical, engineering, productivity, and cost perspective for the UK market. To interrogate the potential solution, the project will be fully digitised via the creation of a digital twin to capture all available information, as well as test project suitability with the supply chain, giving consideration to **Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA)** and **Disassembly (DfMA+D)** requirements. This will ensure mass customisation and standardisation, enable full process automation, develop an integrated supply chain and take cognisance of the need to design and construct following the **Circular Economy** model. In the current COVID-19 climate, factory shift patterns can better manage social distancing, automation can reduce manual handling and personalisation can ensure continuous value add to our renewable natural resources. Furthermore, the data and evidence produced by the project will be transformed into functioning live case studies for digital and AR/VR learning opportunities and knowledge exchange, ensuring full dissemination of best practice techniques and methodologies in a COVID-safe environment.