MPS Project Navigator: Plan Your Modular Building

A modular building planner, asking about the use, the ground and the date. It will return two or three designs, the decisions each puts in front of you, and which sheets to ask for.

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A01 · Abstract title-block sheet

The page · 01

A short set of questions, and deliberately not a calculator

This will be a narrowing tool. Twenty-six designs is more than anyone should have to read through, and the group a building belongs in is generally settled by the first few answers. What comes back will be a shortlist worth reading properly, together with a plain note of what none of the shortlisted designs does.

It will not be a calculator and it will produce no figure of any kind. Anything that returns a number from a handful of answers is guessing at the ground, the approach, the services, the finish and the phasing all at once, and a reader given a number that way remembers it long after it has stopped being true.

The page · 02

What it asks, and why each question is there

What the building is for, because use decides the group before anything else does. Who occupies it and how many of them, because that decides the arrangement. Whether it is used all year or in a season, because that changes the envelope and sometimes the base. And how many of the building you eventually want, because repetition changes the design rather than just the quantity.

Then the ground. Roughly where the plot is, what the approach road is like for a flat-bed load, whether the land falls, and whether services already reach the boundary. Those four are the questions that decide whether a design fits your site at all, and they are asked early because a shortlist built without them is a decoration.

Last, the date. When the building has to be open, and whether it opens in one phase or several. Phasing changes what gets drawn from the beginning rather than being added to a finished design, which is why it is asked at the start rather than left until a plan is on the table.

The page · 03

Three things come back, and none of them is a figure

A shortlist, usually of two or three designs, each with a line saying why it is on the list and what it would ask you to accept. Where nothing on the list answers part of your brief, that is stated. A shortlist that pretends to answer everything is the least useful thing this tool could produce.

Then the decisions each of those designs puts in front of you. They differ by building: a service route that has to run one side or the other, a screened bay against a closed one, the number opening in a first phase, the mix of one type with another. Each has a consequence visible on an elevation, and each is set out on that design’s own page.

Then the sheets to ask for. Where a shortlisted design is drawn, its set is named, along with the sheet worth opening first for your particular worry: the site plan where the approach is in doubt, the sections where the levels are, the build-up details where a consultant is the one to convince.

The page · 04

What this will not do, however the questions are answered

It will not price anything, estimate anything or produce a range. It will not give a completion date, because your approvals and your ground sit on that programme and neither is known here. It will not state a bearing, a load, a thermal value or any other engineering figure, because none of those is ours to state anywhere on this site.

Nor does it replace the survey or the conversation. It gets a reader from twenty-six designs to two or three and tells them what to read next, which is worth doing well and is all it is for. Everything after that is a scheme drawn on your own ground, and that is done by people rather than by a form.

The page · 05

What to do with the result

Read the shortlisted pages properly, including the sections that say what has not been fixed. Then ask for the sets, and give them to whoever will be checking us on your behalf before you meet anybody. A consultant handed a full set forms a view quickly, and that view is more useful to you early than late.

If two designs stay on the list after all that, ring and describe the plot. A choice between two shortlisted designs tends to turn on what the ground allows rather than on preference, and that is a conversation rather than a reading exercise.

Questions

Questions to settle around a structured brief before design effort begins.

Will this tell me what my building will cost?

No, and nothing on this site will. A figure produced from a handful of answers ignores the ground, the access, the services, the finish and the phasing, all of which move it. The quotation is written against your design on your surveyed plot, and it states what is included and what is not.

Do I have to answer everything?

No. Answer what you know and leave the rest, and the result will say which of the missing answers would change it. That is more useful than a confident shortlist built on guesses, and it also tells you which questions to take away and settle before the next conversation.

What if none of the designs fits what I want?

The result will say so rather than force the nearest one on you. A project is expected to begin from a published design and move, so a partial fit is a workable starting point; a poor fit is worth knowing about at once. Either way the answer comes back with the shortlist rather than in a later meeting.

Does using this commit me to anything?

No. The shortlist comes back, and for any design on it that has been drawn, the sheets follow on request. That order holds on every route into this studio: what can be read goes out first, and nothing is required from you to obtain it. A reader who can check the work is the reader this studio wants.

Can I use this for more than one building on the same site?

Yes, and it is worth doing separately for each. A resort with cottages, a clubhouse and a spa is three designs with three sets of decisions, and they interact on the site plan rather than in the tool. The shortlists come back individually and the arrangement is settled at the scheme stage.

How long does it take?

Not long, and less if a survey is open in front of you. The part worth slowing down for is the phasing question, because the answer to it shapes what gets drawn from the first line rather than being something a finished design can absorb afterwards. Everything else is quick to answer.

Narrow it to two, then ask for the sheets

Answer what you know, take the shortlist to the product pages, and ask for the sheets behind any design on it that has been drawn.

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