How we work
The first move decides the rest of the build
Ours is a design office that happens to own a factory — not a factory that happens to draw.
Where the idea comes from
Car designers don't start with the shape
Once they're briefed, the first thing car designers do is position the critical mechanical components — the engine, the transmission, the fuel tank, the suspension — collaborating across disciplines to deliver function and structure together. Everything else is drawn around those decisions, because everything else depends on them.
Buildings are rarely designed that way. The structure turns up late, as a package to be priced once the drawings are finished, and it inherits every decision that was made without it. The frame then has to accommodate a set of choices nobody costed against it — a span that needs a transfer beam, a service run with nowhere to go, a module split that lands on a load point, a lift that needs a bigger crane than the budget allowed.
None of those are framing mistakes. They are positioning decisions made before the structure had a voice.
So we ask to be in at the same point a car designer would be: after the brief, before the shape is settled. Load paths, bracing, spans, service routes, module splits and lift points get positioned first, with the architect and the builder in the room. Then the building gets drawn around a structure that already works.
The same building, two orders of operation
The usual order
Structure fitted last
- Brief
- Form and layout settled
- Documentation completed
- Structural package priced at tender
- Frame supplier engaged — here
- Conflicts surface on site
- Variations, RFIs, rework
Every problem is found at the most expensive moment it could possibly be found: after the drawings are fixed, or after the concrete is poured.
How we work
Structure positioned first
- Brief
- Structure positioned — here
- Form and layout developed around it
- Detailing, clash and buildability resolution
- Engineering and certifier documentation
- Manufacture, complete and in sequence
- Install
The same problems still exist. They are found while they are still a drawing revision, which is the cheapest place any of them can be solved.
The process, stage by stage
What actually happens, and what it removes
These stages are a real sequence. Each one closes out a class of problem that would otherwise reach your site.
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01
Brief and early engagement
We take the brief, the constraints and the program before the form is locked. If you have already tendered we can still supply — the value available is just smaller, and we will say so.
Resolved hereWhether the structure can shape the building, or only serve it.
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02
Positioning the structure
Load paths, bracing, spans, service routes, module splits and lift points, placed first with your architect and builder in the room. The car designer's first move, applied to a building — and the stage the industry skips.
Resolved hereTransfer structure, awkward spans and service conflicts — designed out rather than engineered around.
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03
Detailing by carpenters and builders
The people detailing your frames have stood them. They draw for how it lifts, where the crew starts and what the chippie hits at 7am.
Resolved hereBuildability. The things a drafter cannot see and a carpenter cannot miss.
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04
Clash and buildability resolution
Conflicts between structure, services and finishes are closed out on the model, with the trades who would otherwise hit them. Nothing is left for the person holding the tool to find.
Resolved hereSite RFIs, variations, and the coordination gap between separate consultants.
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05
Engineering and certifier documentation
In-house engineering produces every document a certifier needs to approve the frame and truss component. No separate engineering scope beside it.
Resolved hereA duplicated consultant scope, and the loop between that consultant and the frame supplier.
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06
Manufacture
CNC-processed wall sheets and frames, cut to the drawing. Bracing, lintels, tie-downs, service penetrations and solid fixings go in at the factory — garage doors, AC return air, wet area services.
Resolved hereSite labour, site waste, and the cost follow-on trades charge for fixing someone else's work.
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07
Delivery in erection sequence
Loads ordered to match the way the frame goes up, not the way the truck was packed.
Resolved hereDouble-handling, and crews waiting on the piece that is at the bottom of the stack.
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08
Install
Frames are installed. The crew executes a solved design instead of interpreting one.
Resolved hereThe difference between a program you hold and a program you explain.
A word on how we take work on
We choose our clients, and they choose us
We take on a limited number of clients and work as their engineering department rather than their lowest quote. That is a deliberate constraint: the way we work only pays if we are in early enough to shape decisions, and that requires a relationship, not a purchase order.
If you are looking for a frame priced off a finished set of drawings, there are plenty of businesses that will do that well. If you want the structure to make the rest of the build cheaper to stand up, that is the conversation we are interested in.