Designing a prefabricated building is real work, and the payoff can be large, but not every project fits. Before committing to cross-laminated timber (CLT), glulam, or any prefabricated system, you want to know it is cost-effective and technically better than conventional framing for your job.
That is why the work splits into two agreements: preconstruction first, then supply. Preconstruction answers whether the building should be timber, and how. Supply builds it.
Before preconstruction
You need an architectural basis: a gable cabin in the woods, a workshop, a family home. Basic plans and elevations in CAD or PDF are enough to start.
What preconstruction delivers
- Value engineering: a review of the design for efficiencies that suit mass timber manufacturing, assembly, and delivery.
- A preconstruction drawing set: foundation plan, member configuration, sections, and elevations ready for the local engineer and the assembly team.
- Loads on foundation for the engineering of a site-specific foundation.
- A preliminary calculation report for local engineering review.
- A cost estimate for supply and delivery of the kit, coordinated with manufacturers, vendors, and the general contractor.
- A delivery timeline coordinated with selected vendors.
Preconstruction gives the cost and schedule certainty a project needs to commit, and it gets every stakeholder aligned before fabrication starts. Its first job is a choice that shapes every element in the kit: what the building should be optimized for.
Adapted with permission from a note by our colleagues at Red Falls Timber Co.
