Beyond the Pattern Book: Turning Eilio into a Kit of Parts

Following our blog 'Creu Cartref's Eilio Housetype - a closer look' construction is nearing completion as a terrace in Denbigh, proving that Eilio is not simply a diagram or a concept. It is a real, buildable response to a difficult and common housing condition — a site where changes in level can too easily lead to one-off solutions, compromised layouts, and unnecessary complexity.

Eilio is designed to meet Lifetime Homes principles, Welsh Government Development Quality Requirements, and Building Regulations. It brings that compliance together in a compact home which steps with the land, rather than fighting against it.

But can we deliver it better next time?

A house type made from room modules

Eilio is based on the Creu Cartref room-module approach.

Rather than beginning with each house as a unique composition of walls, floors and components, we start with repeatable room-sized modules. These create a disciplined dimensional framework for the home: rooms align, structure aligns, and the points where elements meet can be repeated and controlled.

That doesn't mean every house must look the same. Eilio is a good example.

The overall arrangement suits a sloping site, with the house stepping through its section, yet the component parts within it are familiar, repeatable, and reusable. The same thinking can support different house types, apartment types, terraces and site layouts.

The repeatable unit is not necessarily the whole house. It is the room module and the interface between modules that enable a platform DfMA approach.

What do we mean by platform DfMA?

DfMA means Design for Manufacture and Assembly: designing a building so more parts can be made accurately and efficiently in a controlled manufacturing environment, then brought to site for straightforward assembly.

A platform DfMA approach goes a step further. It is not about finding one construction system for one project. It creates a controlled family of repeatable parts — panels, floor cassettes, openings, service zones and connection details — that can be configured into more than one building type.

In simple terms:

Instead of designing every new home from scratch, we develop a shared kit of parts that can create many well-designed homes.

For Eilio, that means standardising the dimensional configuration of the timber-frame wall panels and floor panels. Rather than treating every wall as a new drawing and every floor as a new fabrication exercise, the next iteration identifies a controlled set of repeatable panels, openings and floor cassettes.

The illustrations below show how the repeatable superstructure for Eilio can be configured using variations of three wall panel dimensions and one floor cassette.

Adopting a DfMA approach like this can also make homes easier to adapt, recover and reuse. When panels, floor cassettes and connections are designed as a known, repeatable kit of parts — with clear information about their materials and how they are fixed together — future change does not have to mean demolition. Elements can be repaired, replaced, reconfigured or, where appropriate, carefully disassembled for use elsewhere. This is Design for Disassembly: designing today with the next use of the building’s components in mind. It supports a more circular economy in housing, where value and embodied carbon are retained for longer rather than discarded as waste.

The opportunity is bigger than Eilio

The panel and floor arrangements explored through Eilio will not be unique to Eilio.

They can be repeated across other Creu Cartref house and apartment types where the same room modules, structural alignments and interfaces occur. Over the coming weeks, we will demonstrate how this shared dimensional logic can travel across the wider family of homes.

That is where the potential for genuine industrialisation begins.

A timber-frame manufacturer does not need an ever-growing catalogue of unique house types. It needs fewer, more repeatable panel types; clearer interfaces; reliable information; and enough continuity of demand to improve production, quality and cost over time.

The same applies to other building components such as beam and block floors, doors and windows, kitchens, bathrooms, M&E installations, etc.

For the client and contractor, this should mean greater certainty. For the design team, it means less reinvention. For the supply chain, it creates a better basis for investment and learning. And for residents, it should mean homes that are well designed, compliant and consistently delivered.

A live test, not a finished claim

The homes now nearing completion are not being presented as a fully industrialised platform product. They are the evidence base.

Eilio demonstrates that a room-module approach can deliver a compliant, attractive and practical home on a sloping site. The next challenge is to turn that design logic into a maintained technical product: a controlled kit of parts, coordinated Stage 4 information, defined manufacturer interfaces and a process that learns from each project.

That is the difference between repeating a drawing and improving a product.

Why this matters now

There is growing interest in pattern-book housing across the UK. Newham Council’s National Standard House Frames programme is particularly relevant here. Led by Populo Living, with Hawkins\Brown as lead consultant, it is exploring how a repeatable housing “chassis”, common grid and standard components can give the supply chain a stable design framework to manufacture against. The ambition is not to make every street or home identical: the structural and technical platform can be repeated, while external character and local response remain adaptable. That is the important shift for Eilio too — moving beyond a pattern book of good house designs to a platform-DfMA approach in which a controlled kit of panels, floors, components, and interfaces can be repeatedly manufactured, assembled, and improved.

At Creu Cartref, we believe each completed project should leave behind more than a completed building. It should leave a better starting point for the next one.

Eilio is a step on that journey: a home built for a sloping site today, and the beginning of a repeatable kit of parts for tomorrow.