ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 28

2.5. Regulations and policies
Compliance with building regulations and standards is one of the major issues that should be
considered when transferring a method of construction to Iran. UK building regulations and
standards are generally more detailed, precise, and comprehensive than the Iranian building regulations and standards. Therefore, in general, it could be argued that if MMC were to be transferred to Iran, they would probably comply with the Iranian regulations and standards. An important exception is the necessity for earthquake-proof design in Iran. Seismic requirements are
covered by so-called Standard No. 2800 (Iranian Code of Practice for Seismic Resistant Design of
Buildings). As Iran is situated on the Himalaya-Alps seismic belt, earthquake is a serious concern
throughout the country. Therefore, any potential MMC must comply with earthquake regulations.
This, to avoid additional costs, it may be more feasible to start with some non-structural products
and methods that do not need fundamental modifications to comply with Iranian building regulations. Different cladding and internal wall systems may be suitable options to begin with.
One of the major issues in Iran is the high sensitivity of the housing industry to economic conditions and governmental policies, especially financial ones. In many cases, such policies create
great shocks in the housing market followed by massive house price increases in a very short
period of time. Rising prices are not necessarily a bad phenomenon if they happen in a rational
way but this is not the case in Iran. The experience has shown that house prices in Iran could rise
by more than 100% in a very short period as happened recently in many parts of the country. For
this and several other reasons, there are frequent housing booms and busts which can greatly influence the demand for housing and MMC products consequently. Obviously, the government’s
responsibility is to stabilise the economy since such instabilities are discouraging for potential investors. Economic instability, however, may have some benefits for some MMC too. This situation
may encourage builders to use offsite methods of construction since the contract for such methods is usually set at the beginning of the project when prices are agreed. Therefore, developers do
not need to be concerned about price fluctuations while the project is in progress on site.
Restrictive (subjective) planning policies are also a major barrier towards broader applications of
MMC in the UK (Lovell 2003; Bagenholm et al. 2001; NAO 2005). The absence of proper planning
and design policies in Iran has caused many cities such as Tehran to suffer from critical problems
such as uneven texture, heavy traffic, air and sound pollution, privacy issues and massive population density in some areas. However, fewer planning limitations decrease the associated risks of
MMC and increase the chance of success in Iran.

3. Discussions
The major reason for the Iranian government to encourage industrialised modern methods of
construction is to increase the efficiency and housing output. Arguably, this situation is comparable with the UK conditions after World Wars when massive and urgent demand encouraged
the UK government to consider prefabricated methods of construction to overcome the housing shortages. The dull and unattractive prefabricated buildings of the 20th century are widely
considered to have caused some social and environmental problems, leading to the premature
demolition of many such buildings. One of the outcomes of such mistakes was negative public
attitude towards prefabricated methods of construction in the UK. Indeed, a negative public attitudes towards such methods due to the poor quality of prefabricated systems is a major barrier to
broader application of MMC in the UK is (Lovell 2003). Iranian people, in contrast, have a fresh attitude towards MMC and prefabricated methods of construction. According to a questionnaire survey undertaken in Tehran, around 90% of architects have a positive attitude towards such meth-

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ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy