Value engineering, the first item in preconstruction, starts with a choice. A building kit can be optimized for different things, and the choice has to be made early because it shapes every element.
Optimize for speed
Fewer elements, less variation between them. Large components let a site crew erect quickly. One useful measure is finished area per crew-day; about 10 square feet per person per day is a good score.
Optimize for timber
If the project has an affordable, capable labor pool, turn up the complexity and use each material only where it is best: glulam for simply supported beams, steel at cantilevers, cross-laminated timber (CLT) as the diaphragm. The measure here is volume of timber per square foot of floor; roughly 0.25 cubic meters per square meter is a good result for most homes.
There are other targets too: aesthetics, sustainability, ease of handling. The question we ask at the first meeting is which one leads to the best outcome for this project. Once that is settled, the design moves into the model, in stages that have names.
Adapted with permission from a note by our colleagues at Red Falls Timber Co.
