Why modular buildings are great for education

3 min read | Matt Goff | March 2018

We’re part of a wider collaboration of businesses. One of our sister businesses is an industry leader in portable and modular building solutions.

Thurston’s Building Systems provides high-quality modular and portable buildings for use in every industry and is designed to meet a wide variety of requirements.

See why modular buildings are great for expanding schools from one of the experts over at Thurston’s Building Systems.

Schools are over-crowded and underfunded and it’s evident that things need to change. Expanding schools is the first step to solving overcrowding issues, helping students improve performance. With tight budgets, expanding schools isn’t as easy as it sounds. Traditional expansions don’t come cheap or quickly. How can the Education sector solve these issues? Modular can be a solution but the uptake is slow despite numerous benefits.

Quick construction

Construction at schools can be disruptive. One of the biggest issues when completing any construction at schools is finding time to do it. It’s important to make sure that children are safe, especially young school children who might want to see what’s going on. It can take months and a lot of money if you can only work on weekends or school holidays.

Modular is up to 50% quicker than traditional methods. Buildings are also completed offsite and then installed once 90% complete, minimising disruption for the school. This saves money and improves efficiency.

Cheaper

The cost of construction isn’t something that education providers can afford. Staff wages and necessary equipment are generally top of the list of things to spend money on. But the best thing about modular buildings is that they’re much more affordable to build and maintain. This means that education suppliers with small budgets can tackle overcrowding with a modular expansion.

Adaptable

One of the best characteristics of modular buildings is flexibility. Our buildings come in a variety of layouts, shapes and sizes and can be tailored specifically to the clients’ needs. It’s very easy to modify a building once installed whether you need it smaller or bigger. If you have a particularly big class, it’s very simple to expand a modular building. Similarly, if you have a particularly small class, it’s simple enough to make it smaller.

With new fire regulations coming into effect in January 2025, our head of technical, Marc Johnson discusses how Thurston is putting in the groundwork to ensure our products are, not only, exceeding fire regulations but providing clear evidence of performance.


For most people, when you hear the term “modular buildings”, you probably envision identical boxes on a construction site.