Manchester United’s proposed new stadium could prove a game-changer for prefabricated construction
For a storied football team with a long list of firsts, it’s perhaps fitting that in 2025 the Red Devils are poised to make history again. Only this time, as much off as on the pitch.
Just as the spring daffodils were sprouting from the damp March ground, Manchester United made national and global news announcing the construction of a new 100,000-seat megastructure, steps from where the 115-year-old Old Trafford stadium stands today.
With features that include an umbrella-like protection from inclement weather, enhanced walkability, synergy between the natural and artificial environment, and updated public transport, the planned sport and entertainment complex is poised to transform not only the local Old Trafford community and Greater Manchester at large, but also the entire UK construction industry.
While such rhetoric may read like a publicity stunt, large on loft, small on logistics, architect Lord Norman Foster of British international architecture powerhouse Foster + Partners, has turned heads lately with his promise to get the job done in only five years, less than half of what’s typical.
How? With prefabricated construction.
Modular scores big
Compared with traditional on-site projects, modular construction is an entirely different building approach.
As the name implies, modular construction is the building of large parts of a structure offsite in a manufacturing plant and assembling those components on-site, much like a giant 3D jigsaw puzzle. Each modular component must be built with exacting specification to ensure all parts fit together as designed.
Today, the UK is the fastest-growing regional market in Europe for modular construction with a projected CAGR of 8.2% over the next five years. Globally, the UK accounted for an impressive 15.2% of the world’s entire modular construction market in 2024.
Modular’s growing appeal is severalfold. For starters, the process results in faster construction time, thanks to working indoors in a controlled environment less prone to inclement weather (fewer sick days) and stalled construction. Naturally, this results in cost savings.
It also means fewer personnel and reduced rework and wasted material, as inside improves the ability to control for quality and address design flaws earlier in the manufacturing process.
Sustainability is yet another plus. Building indoors has environmental and carbon footprint advantages. There’s also less disruption to the physical environment and land preparation can be achieved concurrently with the off-site modular build.
Last, modular designs are intended to be expanded over time. Instead of a new build adjacent to an existing structure, modular extensions can be added to the current building.
Reality capture tech: “New” Trafford and beyond
In addition to the above points in modular’s favour, sometimes overlooked is the value of reality capture solutions. Products like the FARO® Focus Premium Laser Scanner and the FARO Orbis Premium, are two examples of this technology at work.
While both solutions are well adapted to on-site scanning, it is in offsite environments where their efficiency and workflow accelerating capabilities can be maximised, helping bring Sir Norman’s half-decade stadium timeline – and other builds – to fruition, faster.
The key here is to remember that a modular build is never fully offsite. There’s always an on-site component. Fitting modular portions of a build together with the on-site skeleton of a structure is critical and any deviation from tolerance results in costly delays.
Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) offers as-built and on-site updates to ensure prefabricated parts fit in their designated spaces before they leave the factory. Mobile solutions, meanwhile, offer another advantage: the ability to provide conclusive and frequent updates, aligning regular 3D data to the BIM process.
For both technologies, speed is also critical. Which is why in part the Focus Premium and Premium Max features Flash Technology. For Focus, Flash is a proprietary solution that cuts scanning time in half thanks to image upscaling captured by a 360-degree camera.
In Orbis’ case, the device’s lightweight, compact design means that speed of capture is greatly accelerated on the jobsite, leading to frequent progress updates and near real-time on-site documentation.
The technology can also be used to scan and map the physical on-site location of the eventual modular structure, acquiring detailed terrain and land variables while the offsite construction continues.
Whether it’s the measurement details between on-site and offsite alignment, or more accurate as-built documentation, 3D reality capture technology helps better ensure alignment between modules while point cloud registration and processing can be performed in programs like FARO® SCENE and later exported into third party BIM software.
The result is across-the-board time and efficiency savings with less on-site errors and delays. There’s also the project multiplier effect: the faster existing projects can be brought to completion, the faster new projects can begin.
This is why the world is so keen to see if the “new” Old Trafford can be built in the stated timeframe, given the magnitude of the project, and how its construction costs and estimated timeline compare with other generational builds like the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Because when you include the initial 2007 conceptual start date and its 2011 permission planning approval to its April 2019 opening, the entire project from start to finish took about 12 years to complete.
Housing crisis help
With modular again in the spotlight, it’s possible more prefabricated structures will be built up and down the country.
Considering the country’s ongoing housing crisis, with some 8.5m Britons experiencing some level of unmet housing needs, it is more critical than ever that new ways of building be considered.
Modular construction, aided by laser scanning and the latest BIM software, has the potential to become the critical method to boost the country’s home construction rate – the only surefire way to reduce purchasing costs and provide relief for many of those millions.
An established construction method centuries in the making, today’s modular builds in terms of the technology used bear little resemblance to these historic roots, though the manufacturing goals of speed and efficiency – without compromising style or safety – remain.
If the new Old Trafford can live up to the hype, if it can in fact be built in only five years, if its architectural achievement can inspire new stadiums yet unbuilt (in that it doesn’t “look and feel” modular) and if it can help regenerate Manchester, just maybe it’ll give prefabricated construction the 2020s attention it so desperately deserves.
Visit FARO.com to learn more about prefabrication construction technology and the reality capture solutions that are right for you.
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