Design Collections: Named Modular Home, Retreat & Commercial Designs

A collection is one building published with everything that describes it. Four of the modular home designs carry recorded names; the others are recorded against their building type, and sheets exist for six.

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A01 · Abstract title-block sheet

The page · 01

What is actually in one of these collections

A collection is a single building, worked out completely and then published with everything that describes it. The photographs come from one model. The finish family comes from a fixed list. Sheets exist for six of the designs, and the remaining twenty are drawn as each one closes. Nothing in a collection is a mood board, and nothing in it was chosen after the pictures were taken.

That completeness is the reason the collections exist. A client can look at one and see the whole decision in front of them: what the building is, what it will be made of, how it goes together and what remains open until their ground is surveyed. The alternative, which this market is full of, is a rendering with a name under it.

The page · 02

The four residential designs that carry a recorded name

Four of the residential designs are recorded under a name rather than a number. Vayu is the house arranged around a court. Lantern Bridge is the house arranged around one room. Amrai is the house arranged around its land. Rain-Shutter is the house arranged around what its shutters open on to.

Each name records what the design owns, which is also the reason it exists as a separate design rather than a variation on the one beside it. If a scheme could move to another collection without losing anything, it is not a collection of its own. That test is why there are twenty-six of these and not twice as many.

The guest house and garden suite design is recorded without a name, and it is not given one here. A name that appears first on a website and nowhere in the record behind it is a marketing invention, and it would be the only thing on this page that could not be checked against a file.

The page · 03

The approved retreat and commercial designs, recorded by building type

Six designs were approved together and are recorded against their building type rather than under a name: hotel suites, resort clubhouses, spa and sauna pavilions, wellness retreats, glamping suites, and the sales gallery. Each was chosen for one reason, and that reason is on record for all six.

They share a test. The hotel suite reads as a single key and a whole wing of them at the same time. The clubhouse shows its amenities through the glass rather than describing them. The spa repeats one bay along a colonnade. The wellness retreat turns its rooms to water on both flanks. The glamping suite makes a large gesture on a small footprint. The sales gallery explains its own purpose at a glance.

That test — can the building explain itself in one glance — usually agrees with the manufacturing test, and where the two pull apart the record says which of them won. Roof geometry is the common argument: a folded plane is simpler to make than a curved one, and a design that wants the curve has to earn it. The reasoning is written down either way.

The page · 04

The same building, a different finish family, a different setting

Two words do different work here, and confusing them is easy. A set is a different building: a second set for a product is a second design, with its own massing, roof and bay rhythm, chosen and recorded on its own terms. A colourway is one building in a different finish family, photographed in the setting that family belongs to, with the form untouched.

The finish families are a fixed list of eight, each a manufactured panel or coating system rather than a colour invented for a picture. No design repeats a family across its own sets, and the glass, the dark framing and the panel joint line hold steady through all of them, because those are what make these buildings recognisable as one studio’s work.

The page · 05

What a collection does not fix, and never will

A collection fixes the building. It does not fix your site plan, your finished levels, the bearing under the base, the build-ups and their glass specification, the finish you will choose or the order you will build in. Those six are settled once, with your survey and your own consultant, before a component is ordered.

Nor does a collection fix the number of them you need. On a resort site that is a phasing decision; on a plot it is a decision about the second building. Both are worked through against your ground on the product page for the design you are reading, where the choices are set out as decisions rather than as options in a list.

Questions

Questions to settle around named design ideas with room to adapt.

Are these designs fixed, or can a design be changed?

A project is expected to start from a published design and move. The form as published is what has been worked out and, for the six that are drawn, evidenced with sheets, so it is the quickest thing to begin from. Changes are made on drawings, before anything is manufactured, and the quotation follows the changed design.

Why do only some of the designs have names?

Because only some of them have a name on record. Four of the residential designs were named when they were opened; the others are recorded against their building type. Rather than invent names to make the page tidier, this page uses the names that exist and says plainly where there is none.

What does a name actually tell me about the building?

What the design owns, which is the one thing that makes it a separate design. A court, a single room, a piece of land, a view. Read the name as the design problem the building solves, then read the product page to see how it solves it and what that costs you in decisions.

Can I see the same design in a different finish?

Where a second set exists for that design, yes, and it is the identical building photographed in a different finish family and a different setting. Where one does not exist yet, the product page shows the finish families available to it, and the choice is made against your setting rather than from a swatch card.

How do I know the photographs match the drawings?

Because both come from a single model of the building, which is the reason the sheets repay reading. Put the plan beside the photograph and the openings, the bays and the roof line agree. That correspondence is the first thing to test, and it is why the model is built before either one is made.

Which collection should I start from?

Start from the use rather than the look. Residential, hospitality, commercial and technical buildings are grouped separately because the decisions inside each group are different, and the group page sets those decisions out. If the use is clear and the choice is not, send the plot and the brief and you will be pointed at two or three.

Ask what has been drawn for a collection

Name the design. Where it is one of the six drawn, its sheets come back, including the ones that state what has not been fixed; where it is not, the date they are drawn.

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