Multi-Dwelling Projects And The Value Of Repetition
Repetition is where factory construction produces its largest advantage, because every dwelling after the first is built on a line that has already solved the problems.
Why does modular construction suit multi-dwelling projects?
Because a factory improves with repetition. The first module resolves the detailing, the sequencing and the tooling. Every module after it is faster, more consistent and lower risk. A project of several dwellings therefore gains more from factory delivery than a single dwelling does.
A factory gets better at building something the more times it builds it.
A site does not, because each site starts again.
That single difference is why a project with several dwellings gains more from factory construction than a single dwelling does.
Where the gain comes from
**The first one solves the problems.** Detailing, sequencing, tooling, the order trades work in, the fixings, the awkward junction nobody drew properly. All of it gets resolved once.
**Every one after it inherits the solution.** The line already knows the answer, and the people on it have done it before.
**Materials are bought once.** A single order across a project rather than separate orders per dwelling, with consistent supply and no substitution partway through.
**Quality converges.** Consistency across dwellings is a genuine problem on conventional multi-dwelling sites, where different crews produce different results. On a line, dwelling ten matches dwelling one. That consistency is what [factory quality control](/blog/factory-quality-control-and-tolerances) is actually for.
**The programme compounds.** Modules are produced in sequence while the site is prepared for all of them, which is a different shape of programme entirely from building dwellings one after another on site.
Where variation still belongs
Repetition does not mean identical.
The efficiency comes from repeating the **construction**, not from repeating the **appearance**.
Which means the module type, the structural approach, the services strategy and the bathroom can repeat across a project, while orientation, external material, roof form, colour and landscape treatment vary.
A development where every dwelling is visibly the same reads as an institution. A development where the construction repeats and the presentation varies reads as a street, and it costs very little more.
That distinction matters most in [social and affordable housing](/blog/social-and-affordable-housing-regional-nsw), where the building's appearance affects how residents are treated by everyone around them.
The unit mix question
Most multi-dwelling projects need more than one dwelling size.
The efficient answer is a small number of module types that combine into different dwelling configurations, rather than a bespoke design for every unit.
Two or three module types can produce a range of dwellings across a site. Eight types produce eight separate learning curves and most of the advantage disappears.
Getting that mix right is a design-stage decision and it is one of the more consequential ones in the [eight design stages](/blog/the-eight-design-stages-explained).
What it does to the site programme
On a conventional multi-dwelling site, trades move from dwelling to dwelling and the programme is the sum of them.
On a modular project, the site does groundworks and base structures for the whole project while the factory produces the modules, and installation happens over a compressed period.
Which means the site is occupied for less time, disruption to neighbours is shorter, and the exposure to weather across the programme is smaller. The reasoning behind [shorter programmes](/blog/why-modular-programmes-run-shorter) scales with the number of dwellings.
The financial shape
The cost profile is different and worth understanding before a project is financed.
More of the spend happens earlier, because the factory is producing while the site is being prepared. The programme is shorter, which reduces holding costs and brings revenue or occupancy forward.
Both of those change a feasibility, which is the subject of [how HVM changes a development feasibility](/blog/how-hvm-changes-a-development-feasibility), and both matter more as the number of dwellings increases.
Where the threshold sits
A single dwelling built in a factory gains the quality control, the weather independence and the programme certainty.
A project of several dwellings gains all of that plus the repetition, and the repetition is where the economics change rather than only the delivery.
Discuss a multi-dwelling project.
MADEmodular / MADEbetter.
MADEmodular / MADEbetter.