ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 24

therefore, potential investors need to be assured about the long-term continuing demand for
MMC products. Comparing the Iranian and the UK conditions reveals that the housing demand
in Iran is over six times greater than in the UK which could be regarded as a continuing long-term
demand for MMC products. The massive housing backlog in Iran is a great opportunity for MMC
to be successfully adopted by the construction industry.
2.2. Practicality
Iran suffers from the shortages of skilled construction labourers, availability of heavy machinery, and inefficient infrastructure and transportation systems. Availability of raw materials is also
a fundamental issue. Reinforced Concrete (RC) and Steel frame systems are the most common
construction systems in Iran. According to SCI (2013a) about 82.5% of new buildings in 2012 in Iran
were constructed from either steel or reinforced concrete frame systems. Steel and reinforced
concrete systems are therefore very well known to Iranian architects, engineers and builders (Figure 1: Construction methods in Iran.). Thus, those MMC that are compatible with steel and concrete frame systems will have a higher chance of success in Iran.

Figure 1: Construction methods in Iran.
Industrial capacity not only deals with the availability of raw materials, labour, and machinery,
but also the capacity to answer the demand. It should be noted that to increase the construction
production modestly in a national scale, there should be a substantial investment in production
of raw materials to create a new capacity. The investment on raw materials should be based on
the future demand for them (Harvey and Ashworth 1997). A lack of industrial capacity regarding
availability and production of raw materials was one of the major reasons that resulted in the
failure of Winston Churchill’s 1944 emergency housing plan to produce 500,000 housing units
without increasing demand on conventional building resources and skilled labour (Finnimore
1989). Increasing production capacity for raw materials and improving infrastructure are therefore
key to successful application of MMC in Iran.

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ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy