IN Brief:
- A £1,204,648.97 contract including VAT was awarded to Reds10 for RIBA stages 3 and 4 design.
- The Home Office used the RM6184 Offsite Construction Solutions framework for the MoD Bicester Site A opportunity.
- The notice expressly excludes a commitment to Stage 2 construction; any building award would require a further notice.
Reds10 has secured a £1.2m contract, including VAT, to develop detailed designs for a modular construction opportunity at MoD Bicester Site A in Oxfordshire. The Home Office signed the first-stage agreement on 3 November 2026 and published the award on 9 November. It covers RIBA stages 3 and 4, not building work. The authority has explicitly reserved its decision on whether to commission the later construction stage.
The exact contract value is £1,204,648.97 including VAT. It was procured as a call-off from the RM6184 Offsite Construction Solutions framework, which provides a route for public bodies to commission modular and related construction services. The published award identifies the supplier as Reds10 (UK) Limited and the buyer as the Home Office. The project is located at a Ministry of Defence site, but the Home Office is the contracting authority for the present design commission.
RIBA Plan of Work stage 3 develops a spatially coordinated design, while stage 4 ordinarily produces the technical information needed to specify and deliver the work. For an offsite building, this process involves reconciling dimensions, structural supports, building services, manufactured components, and interfaces with site construction before production and assembly decisions are finalised. The public notice specifies the RIBA stages but does not itemise the drawings, component schedules, or manufacturing studies required at Bicester. The current contractual obligation is therefore detailed design rather than a confirmed fabrication programme.
Two-stage procurement separates early design development from a later decision to commission construction. It can allow a client to establish a buildable specification, understand technical interfaces, and evaluate cost and programme exposure before making a larger financial commitment. There is no guarantee that such a route results in an on-site project. In this case the wording is unusually explicit: a further notice will be issued if Stage 2 building works are awarded, and the current agreement does not oblige the authority to take that step.
The design contract runs from 3 November 2026 until 5 January 2027. These are service-delivery dates, not construction or occupation dates. No overall building budget, number of modules, floor area, or intended use of the buildings is included in the published award description. Those missing specifications limit any assessment of the prospective project’s size and site requirements. A subsequent client brief or separate construction-stage notice would establish whether the proposals are to be manufactured and installed, and under what terms.
Reds10 works in industrialised construction, combining building design with manufacturing and site assembly. The company operates manufacturing facilities in Driffield, East Yorkshire, and has delivered buildings for public-sector clients. That experience is consistent with the type of services available through the offsite construction framework, but it does not disclose which products or production facilities will be used at Bicester. The present commission leaves both the eventual construction method and the allocation of factory work to be determined through design and any later building agreement.
Design for manufacture and assembly becomes effective when the building layout, transport envelope, module connections, tolerances, and service interfaces can be reconciled before production starts. An unresolved access route or plant-room arrangement can affect factory dimensions and the sequence of on-site installation. For a government estate, site-specific security, utilities, fire strategy, and operational access may introduce further coordination needs. The award notice does not disclose the Bicester site conditions, so these remain potential design considerations rather than documented problems on this project.
At the boundary between modular fabrication and conventional construction, accuracy of foundations, support points, tolerances, and connection details is critical. Modules manufactured remotely must meet works delivered on site without extensive corrective work. RIBA stage 4 information should ordinarily support detailed resolution of those interfaces, but the public record does not establish whether the future building would use fully fitted volumetric modules, panelised elements, or another solution from the available framework. The term “modular solutions” alone is insufficient to specify the system.
The reported £1.2m value is consequently a professional design-services award, not a measure of the potential building’s construction cost. It includes VAT, whereas other public procurement values are sometimes reported before tax. The two-stage structure also leaves a commercial decision outstanding: the Home Office can conclude design work without signing a second contract for manufacture and installation. No construction start, number of units, or completion date follows from the November design award alone.
Stage 1 is scheduled to conclude on 5 January 2027. Any decision to proceed to building works would require a further formal contract and notice setting out the agreed scope and value. Reds10’s confirmed responsibility is to deliver the commissioned RIBA stage 3 and 4 design services for Site A. The construction programme, if one follows, remains unawarded.
