OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 2025CONSTRUCTIONBUSINESSREVIEW.COM 19have more opportunities to design ever more creative precast concrete components, thereby mitigating the standardisation that some designers may perceive as limiting their creativity.Most precast concrete elements used in residential building construction today are limited to rudimentary rectilinear slab, beam, column and wall components. Still, as designers embrace the growing capacity in the marketplace, we can anticipate even greater take-up of precast construction.As a structural engineer with many years of experience in commercial and residential construction, when I'm introduced to a design, the preferred primary material--reinforced concrete or structural steel--and at least an outline of the construction system or process usually follow soon after that. However, that same experience has also taught me the value of looking for alternatives to what may at first seem the most prominent design choice and frequently, this will involve ideas related to prefabrication and precast concrete.What is the architect trying to achieve? And how can we, as engineers, help them achieve the optimal design? How can we accomplish the project sustainability goals? Can we improve the Health & Safety outlook of the construction process? Does the Contractor have preferences that could be designed instead of retro-designed later?Precast concrete components can offer positive solutions to many of these questions.Improvements in technology and materials and the imperative of climate change are forcing designers to examine their designs more closely and offer continual improvements to material and life-cycle efficiency. Working closely with architects and other designers, being open to their ideas, or questioning accepted norms can often lead to efficient and exciting design solutions.However, are the reasons structural efficiency, ingenuity and ever-increasing component variety driven by a more competitive market the real reasons that structural engineers should be looking to design more precast concrete and prefabricated components into their buildings? Perhaps there are other more compelling reasons.Large cities' transient skilled labour resources market is increasingly erratic, volatile and costly. For contractors to rely heavily on in-situ concrete works potentially significantly impacts their ability to meet programmes. Utilising more precast components reduces this demand and ultimately reduces site operatives, leading to fewer accidents. This also benefits that workforces can be located in regional centres, where labour is cheaper and perhaps reliable and where components are reliably produced in factory-controlled conditions, ensuring the best chance of meeting the quality objectives.Precast concrete may not answer every issue facing modern design and construction on every site. However, structural engineers and designers should look more closely at the earliest stages of a project for options that could incorporate more significant off-site prefabrication rather than adapting those components into designs as part of some Value Engineering of buildability exercise during the construction phase. Instead, these elements should become a more readily considered tool in the Structural Engineer's design lexicon. With improved technology and more competition, we can expect innovations that allow greater component variety, enabling designers to create ever more creative precast concrete components without losing quality· The European precast concrete market is projected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 4.5 per cent between 2025 and 2029, driven by increasing demand for sustainable construction solutions and infrastructure development. Quick Bytes
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