A revolution in construction: Streda
In a previous blog, we described the emergence of and research into pluggable installation in concrete. For Isolectra and its partners, however, this was just the beginning. This settled the power supply (walls and floors can be wired during installation) but it soon led to a follow-up question: is there a plug or can we develop a plug that can connect power and data?
Additionally, we see a number of trends around us that we would like to respond to with our solutions and innovations. This relates to:
- The energy transition and associated calls for behavioural change in energy consumption.
- Circularity. Scarcity of resources and fragility of the environment, calls for recycling and waste elimination.
- Internet of things (IOT) and the increase in smart devices and their domestic use.
- Industrialisation of construction.
The combination of these megatrends and market demands means that we are now on the eve of implementing a new system: Streda. Streda responds to these trends and meets the demands of the market.
Rationale
The demand from the construction industry stemmed from two challenges that, despite the possibility of pluggable installation in concrete, are still encountered:
- Data: as mentioned, the power supply is pluggable but the data (for internet connection, TV, game consoles, etc.) still requires expert input. This expert needs to go to the distribution board to connect the data cable there and route it further into the house. For this, you have to go through a number of prefab elements. In short, a labour-intensive job. The wish from the construction side was therefore to include data cables in the installation from the word go.
- Moving construction work to the factory: when a house is shell, a fitter is needed to connect all sockets and switches. This is despite it being preferable for as much work as possible to take place in a factory environment rather than on construction sites. The more this succeeds, the smaller the chance of mistakes and the less people get in each other’s way. The desire here was therefore to investigate a plug-and-play application that connects a socket or data point quickly, safely and seamlessly.
Based on these questions, we started researching and eventually this led us to the new, revolutionary system Streda.
The origins of Streda
Within Isolectra, we were already familiar with Plastic Optical Fibre (internet over fibre optics) and are, of course, the experts on pluggable installations. In the end, we managed to combine this knowledge. In other words, a combination of an optical cable, electrical cable and plug. This has led to a system that allows flexible, removable and modular construction with ready-made plugs that ensure data is routed throughout the home.
Streda is a complete system consisting of four components. The first two elements are flush-mounted boxes (we call these docks) and cassettes (we call these snap-ins). Together, these form a whole with the specially developed hybrid cable and central box above the group cabinet. This box contains the electronics and is the heart of the system. All components in the home communicate with this box as well as among themselves. The result: a network that ensures connections are always good. Also in homes with multiple floors and rooms.
However, Streda’s main objective and outcome is to simplify and make the industrial construction process more efficient. This has been to the great satisfaction of the builders who have interacted with Streda to date.
You can read more about the benefits of Streda for both builders and residents in our next blog.
Current application
Initially, Streda was conceived for use in precast concrete housing construction. However, the aim is to make the system suitable for all prefab methodologies. Consider timber-frame construction, for example.
The first pilot homes were scheduled for construction in December 2023. More homes to be fitted with this system will follow in the first half of 2024. No doubt we are going to learn a lot from this and develop the system further. However, everything indicates that Streda is going to make a positive contribution to a more efficient process in both commercial and residential construction and is easy to apply.
Want to know more about Streda? Or would you like to exchange views with us about functionalities and applications? We would love to hear about it!
