What external works sit outside the modules?

It is easy to think of a modular project as the modules. The site half is the other project, running at the same time, and on an accessible dwelling it carries compliance of its own.

The accessible path of travel

This is the item most often underestimated.

Getting from the street or the parking space to the front door has requirements: gradient, width, surface, level changes, landings and no step at the threshold.

A dwelling with a compliant interior and a path that is too steep does not work. The resident cannot reach the door.

On a sloping site this frequently drives the whole site layout, because the path has to achieve its gradient somewhere, and where it cannot, ramps and landings have to be designed into the levels rather than added afterwards.

That makes the external works a design problem resolved during the design stages, not a landscaping decision made at the end.

The parking and arrival

An accessible parking space with the correct dimensions and a level transfer area beside it.

A drop-off arrangement where the dwelling is served by vehicle. A path from that space to the door that meets the same requirements as everything else.

Shelter at the entry, which matters more than it sounds for someone transferring in the rain.

Stormwater and drainage

Every site has to deal with water, and the requirements come from the consent and the council.

On-site detention where required. Connection to the legal point of discharge. Subsoil drainage where the ground demands it. Surface falls that take water away from the building rather than toward it.

This is conventional civil work and it is a real part of the programme. It also has to coordinate with the foundations and the service positions, which is why it sits inside the same design process.

Services to the street

Water, sewer, power and communications from the building to the authority connection.

These carry authority approval processes with their own timeframes, outside the contractor's control, and they are one of the more common causes of a project waiting. Starting them early is the only mitigation.

Retaining, fencing and boundaries

On a sloping or a cut site, retaining structures are engineered elements rather than landscaping, and they are frequently a significant cost.

Fencing, gates and boundary treatment carry their own requirements where the accommodation type calls for them.

Landscaping

Not decoration. On accommodation held long term it is a maintenance liability and an amenity question.

Planting that will not damage paths or drainage. Surfaces that stay trafficable and non-slip. Irrigation where planting depends on it. Outdoor space that residents can actually use, with level access to it.

Private open space is frequently a requirement of the consent, and its accessibility is part of whether the dwelling works.

Why it runs in parallel

Site preparation and module fabrication happen at the same time. That concurrency is where the programme reduction of up to 60 percent comes from, and the external works are the site half of it.

While the modules are in production, the site is being cleared, the foundations built, the services run and the levels established. The two streams converge at installation.

Which means the external works are not the tail of the project. They are half of it, running from the start.

One accountable business

Both halves sit inside one contract, which is what stops the accessible path of travel becoming somebody else's scope after the dwelling is finished.

Send us the site and we will work through the levels.

MADEmodular / MADEbetter.