From a Basement Office to a Team of Modular Experts

Best Practices for Modular Construction

That mindset, in fact, is one of Dalvit’s five best practices for modular designers. “Start with the right mindset and be willing to get into the weeds on means and methods with factories, general contractors, and most importantly, the scope delineation between the two. If a designer doesn’t have that mindset and doesn’t care about scope delineation, the project is doomed from the get-go,” he said.

Next on his list is learning how factories actually work and visiting factories to see for yourself and learn. “Think like a factory manager, take tours of the factory that you’re working with. Take tours of any factory for that matter and as many factories as you possibly can take tours of,” he said. “Understand what the limitations are, the real-life limitations of a factory, what their tooling is, and how they build their assemblies,” he added.

His third idea is a riff on the previous idea, and that’s a deep understanding and development of standard assemblies and sticking to them. “That’s really hard for architects to do. Architects like to deviate and change, break the rules. But in offsite construction, rules are there for a reason. While they might be able to be broken, try not to. Make sure you stick to the standard assemblies and things go a lot more smoothly for the factory,” he added. “There’s still plenty of opportunity for great design.”

His fourth best practice is to advocate for each of the stakeholders on the team. “It really is a team and should not be a silo of designers versus factory versus general contractor versus owner. But rather a group of people all working towards the common goal,” he said. “Help others understand the importance of coordinating your scope with theirs and their scope with others because they may not be fully aware of the downstream implications of what they’re considering or perhaps not considering,” he noted.

Finally, be honest with yourself and if modular is not for you don’t pretend that it is. If you do, you’re not going to be adding value to the client or the stakeholder team. “I’ve been on enough teams now where you’ve had folks on the team that their heart wasn’t into it. They wanted to do the project like any other traditional site-built project, and it just makes trouble for everyone else on the team,” Dalvit noted.

“A list of best practices is a solid tool for future growth, which EVstudio is embracing,” Dalvit said. “With modular construction representing such a tiny fraction of all construction, there is abundant room for growth,” he noted. “Open sourcing of information would help the modular industry as a whole to gain market share by cooperating rather than competing.”

“A rated fire assembly is not a strategic advantage for a factory. It’s just a way you might do things,” Dalvit said. “So I would strongly stress that the industry would better itself dramatically by developing a set of universal standards that would enable developers and owners to consider modular and not have to necessarily feel like they’re limiting themselves to one specific choice before they’ve really had an opportunity to vet the construction method as a whole.”

Though EVstudio is the building designer and you might think their involvement in projects would end with the certificate of occupancy, it doesn’t. “Our involvement really never ends,” Dalvit said.

“There’s always a post CO assessment evaluation, something might come up that the owner might call us about that we’ll step in and assist with in any way that we can, whether it’s a warranty issue with the factory or general contractor, or just a maintenance item,” he added. “We are stewards of our projects and clients long after the construction is completed.”