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Medium-density residential reference scheme

A walk-up apartment building testing two-module dwellings, service risers and balcony interfaces against the production grid.

Typology
Apartments
Application
Urban infill site
Status
Design study
Market position
Selective supply and turnkey
Three-storey walk-up apartment building with repeating balconies on an urban infill site.

01Overview

Medium-density residential is where the module grid meets real domestic planning. This study pairs modules to form a dwelling, resolves the service riser as a repeating vertical, and tests where the module edge meets conventional balcony and envelope work.

The purpose is to establish which parts of an apartment can be industrialised without forcing the architecture into a shape nobody wants to live in.

02The constraint

Apartments carry more variation than an accommodation room — orientation, unit mix, balconies and shared services all pull against repetition, and each variation costs throughput.

Developers also carry an interest-bearing construction window. Every month a scheme stays open before revenue is a direct cost, which is why programme, not unit rate alone, decides whether a delivery method is worth adopting.

03The response

Variation is absorbed through controlled finishes and interfaces against a small standard product family, rather than by redesigning the module. Where a scheme genuinely needs a different envelope, the moulds accept dimensional supplements instead of being replaced.

Balconies, envelope treatment and roof works are scoped explicitly as conventional site activity, so the boundary between manufactured and built work is stated in the contract rather than discovered on site.

04Scope of work

  • Module strategy and unit planning
  • Design for manufacture and interface schedule
  • Module manufacture and factory fit-out
  • Transport, lifting and placement
  • Conventional works, envelope and balcony interface
  • Services connection, testing and commissioning

05Specification

Dwelling composition
Two modules per dwelling, illustrative
Module footprint
≈19.7 m² external plan area per module
Structure
Monolithic reinforced concrete
Compaction
Pneumatic, 13 000 VPM at 6 bar
Conventional scope
Foundations, envelope, balconies, roof, external works

06Collaborators

Scheme architect
Client appointment
Structural engineer
Registered professional appointment
Civil engineer
Foundations, services and site works

Design study — no client appointment

07Gallery

Apartment block photographed at dusk with warm interior lighting across repeating units.
Repetition read as rhythm rather than uniformity
Domestic interior within a completed precast dwelling, showing living and kitchen space.
Interior fit-out completed against a product-specific scope matrix
A volumetric concrete module secured to a low-bed trailer for transport to site.
Dispatch follows a signed site-readiness certificate

Visualisation — design study, not a delivered project

Building something like this?

Send the room schedule and the programme. We will come back with an assessment of whether industrialised delivery improves the scheme, and what would need to be proven first.

Enquire about this scheme