Who Does What On A Modular Project

The question behind this one is usually simpler than it sounds: if something goes wrong, who fixes it.

On a conventionally built project that answer takes a while to reach, because design, documentation, construction and the trades are frequently held by different parties under different contracts.

The parties on a modular project

**The client,** who holds the site, the brief, the funding and the decisions. On accommodation projects this is often a developer, a provider, a community housing organisation or a private owner.

**The builder,** who under a design and construct arrangement holds design, documentation, fabrication, transport, installation, site works and handover.

**The certifier,** who is independent of both and signs off compliance at defined points. Not appointed by the builder to suit the builder.

**The accommodation provider,** where the client is not also the operator. They hold the operational brief: how the dwelling will be staffed, who will live in it, what the support model requires.

**The consent authority,** being the council or the relevant state body, which assesses the planning application.

**Authorities and utilities,** for the connections, which run to their own timetables and are the item most often underestimated.

That is a shorter list than a conventional project, and the shortening is the point.

What sits inside the builder's scope

On a turnkey arrangement: the architectural and engineering design, the documentation for approval, the structural steel, the fabrication, the internal fitout, the transport, the craneage, the installation, the site works, the services connections to the boundary, the external works and the final clean.

Which means the interfaces that cause most disputes on a conventional job, between the structure and the services, between the design and what was buildable, between the trades and the programme, sit inside one contract rather than between several.

That is the whole argument for [single accountability](/blog/design-and-construct-single-accountability), and it is worth being specific about where the boundary falls rather than assuming it covers everything.

What sits outside it

**The planning approval,** which the builder prepares and lodges but the consent authority decides.

**Certification,** which is independent by law.

**Utility connections beyond the boundary,** which belong to the utility.

**Site conditions nobody could see,** meaning contamination, rock or an unmapped service. How these are handled is a contract question and worth settling before signing rather than after discovering.

**The operational model,** which is the provider's. A dwelling can be compliant and still not suit how a particular provider runs a house, which is why the [provider requirements](/blog/what-an-accommodation-provider-needs-from-a-builder) belong in the brief and not in the handover conversation.

The decisions that stay with the client

Design sign-off at each stage. The [design freeze](/blog/changing-a-design-after-fabrication-starts), after which changes cost real money and real time. Finishes selection. Site access arrangements where the client controls the land. Payment at the agreed points.

Those are not many decisions, and each one has a date attached. A client who understands which decisions are theirs and when they fall does not become the reason a programme slips.

Where projects actually go wrong

Rarely in fabrication, which is a controlled environment with a repeated process.

Usually at the edges: an approval that took longer than the programme allowed, a utility connection nobody started early enough, a site the modules could not reach, or a decision that sat with the client for five weeks while the factory held a slot.

Which means the useful conversation at the start of a project is not about who builds what. It is about who owns each date, and what happens to the programme if that date moves.

How we deliver.

MADEmodular / MADEbetter.