Mastering the Rules of Buildable Design10 March 2026
Design that can be built, and built as designed.
"If you go into a room and there's someone who knows how a building goes together, you show them something a little bit off the wall but buildable and you can back it up. You're sorted. That's 75% of the battle." - Dave Egan, Associate
That thinking can shape everything from the smallest fixing detail to the overall arrangement of a scheme. A site that appears too constrained can be opened up. Oftentimes what is considered a perfected plan can be improved by bringing new thinking to it.
Finding what needs improvement is a form of care. Creative ambition should never be in conflict with the ability to actually deliver, and with the right approach, issues can be designed out before they become problems on site.
The Detail that Solves the Problem
If you want to push a design beyond the obvious, you first need to understand what the rules are protecting. Once you know that, constraints stop being roadblocks and start being the tools for smarter solutions.
Two examples from Dave's recent work illustrate this well.
The first started as a design decision that, by every standard rule, shouldn't work. Dave wanted AV screens on both sides of a partition wall, for aesthetic symmetry across an atrium, but acoustic crossover between adjacent rooms meant the standard approach would require building two walls. The space didn't allow for it.
The solution came from thinking around the problem rather than through it. By surface-mounting all conduits and cabling, then covering them with a removable acoustic panel, the aesthetic goal was achieved, and functionality goals were surpassed. The rooms met the required acoustic separation. The cabling became accessible for future upgrades without opening walls. The construction sequence became simpler. And what looked like a problem became, in practice, a cheaper and more functional outcome than anything the standard detail would have produced.
"It meant getting the acoustics guys on board, MEP, AV, the contractor. But it ended up being a cheaper solution because the sequencing was much easier." - Dave Egan, Associate
The second example came from a phasing constraint. On a fit-out project, the handover schedule meant that internal partitions needed to be completed before the facade had been signed off. The standard detail for acoustic and fire separation at the junction of a partition and a facade mullion requires work that can only happen once the facade is in place, so the standard approach was off the table.
After some research, Dave found an off-the-shelf product that could be installed after the partitions and fit-out were complete. By re-sequencing the work, rooms that might have been delayed by façade sign-off were largely completed ahead of schedule, without affecting shell and core approvals. Two workstreams that previously had to happen in sequence could run in parallel. The solution may have been new to Ireland at the time, but once it found its way into the project, it's now becoming a standard detail for the practice.
Both examples share the same shape: a constraint that looked like a dead end, a willingness to search beyond the standard detail, and an outcome that served aesthetics, compliance, and programme all at once. Beauty. Commercial. Programme. Compliance.
Creative compliance - it takes a village and you need to learn to listen
Creative compliance doesn't happen in isolation. Bringing a building together takes a team, and a key part of that is inspiring the people doing the work. Contractors and subcontractors who care about the outcome will go above and beyond to make things work. The framework for compliance is built by the design team; the craft is applied on top.
"You need to instil pride in the contractor and the subcontractors. If they are proud of their work, they will absolutely knock it out of the park." Dave Egan, Associate
Creativity isn’t just technical. It shows up most powerfully in how people relate to each other on a project. Design and construction are sometimes stubbornly hierarchical but in Dave’s view it’s important that everyone feels their input is valued and welcome.
"There are two-year apprentices who are coming up with really good suggestions. You just have to find those people and get them into a room." - Dave Egan, Associate
Value engineering: the third rail
In the subway, there are three rails. Two keep the train on track. The third, the electrified one, causes harm when touched. Value engineering can be the third rail of architecture: the thing that, handled without alignment to design intent, brings the whole project down.
But it doesn't have to be. Approached creatively and collaboratively, working with the entire team and being flexible about where savings can be found, value engineering becomes another form of problem-solving. Sometimes the savings on one element can fund a better decision somewhere else. Sometimes the element that appears to be sorted is actually where the real money is hiding.
The work is in keeping vision across the whole scheme, not just the line items assigned. That's commercially creative. That's collaborative creativity. And it's as much a part of the job as any fixing detail or compliance workaround.
About David Egan
Dave joined MCA in 2015 and works across design and construction on commercial, workplace and data centre projects. He brings a forensic approach to buildability, compliance and creative problem-solving, with a conviction that the best outcomes are delivered by teams who trust each other enough to question and ideate.