About Us
Agile designs, makes and delivers
safe, civil, low carbon, affordable, modular homes using a ‘fabric first’ approach of sustainable biogenic materials using timber and straw, for people in housing need.
Agile Homes provides a full design and build service from initial concept, through planning, manufacture and onsite construction. We call this our Turnkey Service, from initial feasibility through to handing over the keys to completed homes and other buildings to our clients.
Getting keys into the front doors of new, affordable homes is what drives us.
All our buildings are modular, affordable and low carbon. All our buildings are capable of accommodating renewable energy generation and battery storage utilities, as well as rainwater harvesting, ensuring waste reduction.
We can provide panellised modular space and hence can deliver versatile solutions in terms of location, use and design of buildings. We can provide 1 to 3.5 storey homes, which can be designed as a traditional home or as an innovative, contemporary home to suit your preference. See examples of our experience below.
Research-led innovation that meets the challenge of the Climate Emergency. Agile Build Systems are carbon positive – they capture carbon through the use of biogenic, naturally renewable materials. They have been developed and tested through a multi-million pound R&D programme working with National and European level research centres. Funding in the UK by BEIS (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy), the Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK), and internationally by the European Commission via their Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), Eco-Innovation and Horizon2020 programmes. All our Build Systems are fully fire rated, safe and secure. Agile does not build with toxic materials.
Our Mission and Values
People planet profit purpose
Agile is a triple bottom line business. We put people and planet first, delivering person centred design while minimising environmental impacts. We see Profit and Purpose not as Either Or, but as Both And. Everything we do seeks to deliver social value that is and profitable.
Our mission is to help end the challenges of the Climate Emergency and the Housing Crisis. In order to achieve those goals we are necessarily inclusive, innovative and imaginative and act with integrity at all times. We seek to create significant impact, by thinking and working in a whole systems way. The Agile development model unlocks land that’s free and hidden in plain sight. Our Agile build systems use naturally renewable biogenic materials that capture and store Carbon.
Our values and purpose have led to investment in the business by Crisis UK the national charity for people experiencing homelessness. At Agile we walk our talk.
Impact
People in safe, civil, affordable homes in resilient low-Carbon communities meeting need wherever it arises
Imagination
We do not have one way of thinking, instead we are a solutions focussed
Integrity
We live and breathe our vision and values, we Walk our Talk
Innovation
We are an award winning research-led, learning organisation that continuously develop better ways of doing things
Inclusion
We leave no-one behind and move forward using the principle of nothing about us without us
Our Focus
We focus on working closely with clients and residents to deliver high quality, healthy, low maintenance, comfortable, safe and civil turnkey homes.
Agile homes meet and exceed all Building Regulation requirements. We also meet the Future Homes Standards 2025 today and can deliver PassivHaus Certified whole house designs. Our Homes are certified by BOPAS with a 60 year design life, they meet nationally described space standards, are fully warrantied and are mortgeagble, in the same way as any other high quality home. They are super-insulated, airtight, always triple-glazed, all electric PV enabled, light, open plan and very energy efficient.
Our construction system provides many other benefits:
Rapid Construction
Using Modern Methods of Construction the panels for each home are delivered as prefabricated elements that require minimal assembly and finishing on site greatly reducing disruption cost and delays. The shell of the one bed home can be erected in just 5 hours.
Non-toxic Material
Constructed from timber, straw and carefully considered finishes internally, other materials are selected for low levels of airborne chemicals release such as VOCs and formaldehyde which commonly emitted from synthetic alternatives. For example, we don’t use plasterboard, which is now considered a semi-hazardous material, we also have a range of clay plaster that you can choose from.
Carbon Capturing and Carbon Reduction
The main materials used in the construction are wood and straw. These are natural, photosynthetic, renewable materials which have sequestered huge amounts of CO₂ during their lifecycle. A typical one bedroom home is storing the equivalent of 27 tonnes of atmospheric CO₂.
Moisture Management
An Agile home is designed to allow the safe movement of moisture through the building envelope. The hygroscopic properties of the materials are used to regulate the relative humidity and provide a comfortable and healthy internal environment.
Waste Reduction
We use Zero Waste manufacturing processes, all the materials used in our homes can be re-used and recycled. We will reduce waste during construction on site to a minimum, in operation and over the lifetime of every project.
Acoustic Privacy
Super insulation and the material properties of straw coupled with triple glazed windows along with being raised from the ground meant that inside of each home will be noticeably quiet and calm.
Distributed Manufacture
We do not have, want or need, one centrally fixed-location factory. Instead, we use distributed manufacture to manufacture Agile Build Systems Our panels, of varying thicknesses can and are manufactured in a range of workshops across the UK. We do this in a socially impactful way to create jobs locally and we are expanding our manufacture in prison workshops providing certified skills training and education prisoners on their pathway to employment.
Social Value
Adding social and environmental value is at the heart of our business. The true value of our homes should not be measured by price alone, but also by the social and environmental value they add. For Agile’s homes, that added value is significant.
By doing so, we deliver beneficial impacts across all of our work, whether in design, manufacture, construction on site and into the life of the project. We design using non-toxic, naturally renewable materials, sourcing our materials locally ensuring economic value is localised to the homes we build.
Providing certified skills, training and education in the design, manufacture and construction of our homes for young people Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEETs), in Prison Workshops and with Prisoners Released on Temporary Licence (ROTL) people on probation and with formerly homeless people and ex service people.
Why focus so much on Social Value?
It’s one of the means by which we can unlock land that’s free and hidden in plain sight. All Local Authorities are obliged by Government to consider the social value impact of releasing land for low-carbon affordable homes. By holding fast to our principles we routinely help communities and third sector organisations secure land at transactional cost. This means that the total development cost of delivering homes is lower.
Socially impactful manufacture in our Prison Workshop model reduces people’s risk of reoffending, reducing the annual £18bn impact of offending to tax payers. It also means that we can lower the cost of manufacture. Using Bristol City Council’s Social Value Calculator we were able to show that for every £1 spend on an Agile home, we add Social Value of between 57p and 99p, depending on the approach to design, manufacture, assembly and construction that clients want us to use. By locking Social Value in at every turn, we secure grant support for our community-led housing projects.
We would be mad to do anything else.
Innovation
Innovation underpins why Agile is an award-winning company.
Our innovation is underpinned by research-led design and manufacture of MMC building systems, we innovate in land assembly, legal and financial knowhow to unlock land, our designs are made using the latest thinking in how we might decarbonise our built environment, and at core is an approach to generating Social Value that is market leading.
Agile is a learning organisation that constantly seeks to do better in all of the activities we undertake.
But its not just innovation for innovation’s sake, everything we do is focussed on getting keys into the front doors for people in housing need, faster and more affordably and at a scale that will meet the unprecedented demand for new homes that do not cost the Earth.
Our Team
We do all of this with our amazing colleagues. Their energy, enthusiasm and experience bring our clients’ projects to life. Meet the team here!
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