Category Archives: CSI

The Construction Specifications Institute. The mission of CSI is to advance building information management and education of project teams to improve facility performance.

Now You See ‘Em, Now You Don’t: Green Roofs

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Some of the projects I work on experience many design changes between initial concept and completion of construction. On healthy projects, the most dramatic changes that I see occur after the schematic design phase, before the beginning of the construction documents phase. A few of these projects of mine have included “green roofs” (vegetated roofs) at the outset of the project. But those were gone before the construction documents phase started. I’m not sure who’s talking whom down from the roof, but it’s outta there, over and over again. Who brought the idea to the project? Was it just something that added a splash of color to the architect’s renderings? Had the owner always wanted to be able to walk in a garden while simultaneously enjoying a great view from a rooftop? Was everyone on board with a green roof until the contractor’s preliminary pricing came in?

Denver voters just passed the Green Roof Initiative last month, mandating vegetated roofs for certain buildings within the City limits. I wrote a commentary about this for the newsletter of our Denver Chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute. It includes a link to the text of the ordinance, and touches on the specifics of the initiative, some green roof risks for owners, and the loopholes in the ordinance. Here’s part of that:

“Denver voters faced Initiated Ordinance 300, the Denver Green Roof Initiative, in our recent election, and voted it in, by a small margin. What does this mean for building owners, developers, architects, engineers, contractors, roofing distributors and product representatives?” Continue reading…

Green roofs have benefits, mostly for the people who get to look out windows and see plants instead of roofing materials, but they can also mitigate urban heat island impacts, and help to improve the quality of stormwater before it hits municipal systems. Perhaps the most idealistic of the selling points made by the supporters of the Green Roof Initiative is the dream of rooftop urban farming. From the mission of the supporters: “Buildings are permitted to use the rooftop space for urban agriculture. This allows for the building to rent out their rooftop space to urban farmers who can then supply their goods around the city.” However, crops need a roof that meets more than just the minimum mandated by the ordinance. Here’s a basic overview of the 3 main types of green roofs. Some require beefier supporting structure, and more complex irrigation systems, than others.

Most owners who are merely looking to build a commercial building in the Denver area will do the minimum green roof, use a loophole to get out of building a green roof altogether, or build outside the City limits.

As I wrote in my commentary, “Building owners will have costs for their green roofs beyond the design and construction phases. They will have risks that owners without green roofs don’t have. Green roof plantings need to be maintained, cared for, and watered, forever. Insurance riders for green roofs will increase the costs of building insurance, but regular insurance policies usually exclude problems stemming from green roofs, so these will be necessary costs. Problems with the waterproofing components of green roof assemblies, discoverable only after moisture intrusion into buildings, are more difficult to diagnose and repair than problems with non-green-roof assemblies. Moisture intrusion is the most common cause of damage to buildings, and roofs are the parts of buildings that are most prone to moisture intrusion…”

Aesthetically, a green roofscape is a lovely goal for Denver, but building owners should not contribute to this blindly. They need to know what risks they are taking on. Sometimes people start projects without knowing a lot, then learn more as design goes on. (And then the green roofs on my projects aren’t there anymore.) In my work as a construction specifications consultant to architects, I expect to see a little bit more of the same pattern I’ve been seeing for my projects – green roofs that are there at schematic design, and gone before construction. Now you see ’em, now you don’t.

green grass

(Not a green roof. Just green.)

 

 

 

 

Guidelines: Grocery Lists & Specs

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ginger-rootSometimes when we send construction documents out into cyberspace, we don’t know what we’re going to get back. We look at submittals during construction and wonder how in the world someone could think that a particular item would be an appropriate product to use on the project.

Sometimes I read non-work things and wonder if their writers knew that bear and bare have different meanings, peak is not the same as peek, and to and too are two different words. My default assumption is that people write what they mean, and when things are written properly, I am a quick reader. When things are not written properly, I am a slow reader. (If something doesn’t make sense the way it’s written, I tend to reread it with all the possible misspelled homonyms and autocorrect blunders and alternate punctuation in mind. Some people do not bother to take this extra time, and just go with their first impression.)

I know that we can’t, with our written communications, enforce someone else’s compliance with construction contract documents. But we can make those documents easier to read, and, perhaps then, easier to follow.

The other night, my kids suggested stir-fried tofu for dinner. My husband offered to buy ingredients. The grocery list I texted to him included the following:

1 bunch broccoli (1-1/2 lb)
2″ piece fresh ginger root
1 bunch scallions

When I took the produce out of the bag, I found the items pictured above – 2 large knobs of ginger root.

That’s my hand in the photo – my female, normal-sized hand. So the picture clearly shows a lot more ginger root than the one 2-inch piece I’d asked for. I got almost 10 times what I needed.

While cooking that stir-fry, I realized that maybe if I had described the ginger differently, I might have had better results. (I wouldn’t be trying to figure out how to use up some ginger root tonight.) I could have written:

1 bunch broccoli (1-1/2 lb)
1 2-inch piece fresh ginger root
1 bunch scallions

I could have been more parallel and consistent in my writing, and could have used the number of units I wanted for the ginger the way I had for the broccoli and scallion. Maybe then I’d have just gotten one piece, as I’d wanted.

Or, maybe the inch symbol seemed to be a typo. If I’d spelled out “inch,” instead of using the inch symbol, it would have been obvious that I actually meant to write inch, and maybe I’d have gotten ginger root in the size I’d wanted.

There are some good guidelines for specifications writing that I usually try to use in all my writing (even my grocery list text messages). I try to use parallel construction – I write sentences using the same grammatical pattern of words. I use words instead of symbols for “degree,” “percent,” “plus,” “minus,” and “at.” I use full size numbers for fractions, instead of superscript and subscript fractions.

There are good reasons for these, and other, guidelines. If instructions in Part 3 of the spec section are not written in a parallel way, they could be mixed up or overlooked. (“Examine products before installation. Reject damaged materials.” reads better than “Examine products before installation. Damaged materials shall be rejected.”)  If the specs get printed on paper, and subsequently photocopied, symbols and small characters can become illegible. If the specs get converted from one font to another in a word processing program, or converted from one digital program to another, some symbols might actually get generated as different symbols, or could be lost completely.

Someone’s made these mistakes before, and people have created guidelines to prevent others from having to learn through their own experiences. These guidelines and others exist to help us write more clearly, in ways that are less likely to be misinterpreted. Sometimes I encounter specifications that run the risk of being misinterpreted, or are actually incorrect, due to the use of symbols or superscript or subscript characters that have become illegible or are conveying a different meaning that intended. These are usually manufacturers’ guide specifications and documents from building owners.

Everyone who writes specifications or other construction communication could benefit from learning some of these writing guidelines. Check out Construction Specifications Writing: Principles and Procedures by Harold J. Rosen, Mark Kalin, Robert S. Weygant, and John R. Regener, Jr., published by Wiley, and The CSI Construction Specifications Practice Guide, published by The Construction Specifications Institute.

 

 

 

What Did We Learn About Substitutions?

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January’s Panel Discussion on Substitutions at the Denver Chapter CSI meeting included an owner’s rep, a general contractor, a subcontractor, an architecture firm’s construction contract administrator, and a specifier. Here’s some of what we learned.

Many owners welcome substitutions.

The biggest divergence of opinions was about owners’ positions on substitutions. The loud and clear message from the owner’s rep was that owners welcome substitutions, and that many are frustrated with architects’ and specifiers’ reluctance to entertain substitutions. In the eyes of the owner’s rep, there are two crucial things – cost and schedule. Since time is money in construction, schedule is very important to owners, so even a substitution that costs more money but saves time is likely to be favorably received by an owner. Owners wish that more architects and specifiers understood the overall impact of substitutions, time- and money- wise. (It’s important to note that the owner’s rep on the panel primarily represents developers, and recent projects have been multifamily residential projects.)

The specifier pointed out that for private work, substitutions can be good because they give the design team an opportunity to evaluate things they may not have evaluated when they first prepared the documents.

The subcontractor thinks that substitutions are an opportunity for the owner to get a better value. With the developments and changes in products and assemblies that happen all the time, architects and specifiers can’t keep up. Subcontractors, who are specialists in their areas, can keep up, and may be able to offer better solutions.

But some owners don’t want substitutions.

The specifier reminded us that many owners, especially in the public sector, want what they know has worked, and do not want substitutions. Owners such as municipalities, public school districts, and universities may own and maintain many buildings, and need maintenance procedures to be the same from building to building. Public owners’ requirements are sometimes outdated, however, and the specifier does not always have the opportunity to explain to the owner that several of their listed acceptable manufacturers no longer exist.

Substitutions scare architects.

Substitutions scare architects, and for good reason. They spend a lot of time designing around a particular product – that’s why that particular product is specified. Architects worry about how many details in the drawings will be affected – and will no longer be correct – because of a particular substitution. During the months-long design process, design decisions are followed all the way through everything that’s affected by them. There’s often no time to go back and do this again during construction. And when design changes have to be made due to a substitution, it is hard to be sure one has gone back and checked every possible thing that could be affected, as was done when the design was first developed. This is not only due to time constraints, it’s also because this is not how the design process naturally flows.

Architects also wonder if the owner is getting something of a lesser value on the project when a substitution has been accepted because the owner was attracted to cost savings. The architect knows that the owner is happy to be getting something cheaper, but the architect worries that the owner is giving up something of greater value or performance (the specified item), and the general contractor or subcontractor is the one actually saving more money on the substitution.

People have different ideas about what a substitution is.

Panelists agreed that different team members on a design and construction project do not agree about exactly what a substitution is. The general contractor pointed out that team members treat substitutions differently depending on the project delivery method. Substitutions are treated differently on hard bid (design-bid-build), negotiated (construction-manager-at-risk or construction manager/general contractor), and design-build projects.

The general contractor doesn’t want to receive substitutions submitted by subs on hard bid (design-bid-build) projects, because they are usually submitted to the general contractor without enough time to get them approved by the architect prior to the bid. The general contractor then has to decide whether or not to use the price associated with that substitution. If the general contractor is not the low bidder, it doesn’t matter, so there’s an incentive to use the price associated with an unapproved substitution. But if he uses that number and then the substitution is not accepted when submitted to the architect after the bid, he’s losing money.

On negotiated projects, the general contractor wants to see substitutions, get pricing, explain to the owner and the architect that if this product is used instead of a specified product, the owner can save money, or the schedule can be shortened. There’s more of a collaborative effort on negotiated projects.

The specifier (of course) read us the definition of a substitution from MasterSpec. It’s vague. Most of the industry probably agrees that “the devil is in the details” on this issue. We agree that a substitution is a change, but what kind of a change, and how a substitution is supposed to be evaluated, are where the differences of opinion and misunderstandings occur. The owner and design team need to define how casual or formal the process for evaluating substitution requests is. The specifier believes that part of his job is to define that evaluation process succinctly.

For better or worse, “or equal” is flexible.

The owner’s rep doesn’t mind the phrase “or equal” at all. Owners are looking for general contractors who are willing to “turn stones” and look for better options, and the phrase “or equal” in the specs allows for more possibilities.

The contractor says that “or equal” in a spec gives them more flexibility to look at the possibility of using an unspecified product in the bid.

Architects do not like the phrase “or equal” because it is open to multiple interpretations. There’s a lot of information that needs to be evaluated to see if something that is submitted is actually equal, so if someone submits on an “equal” that is not listed in the specs, this contract administrator asks for a substitution request.

The subcontractor likes the phrase even less than architects. He described it as two words in a specification that make subcontractors want to turn away and run as fast as they can in another direction. He thinks that if an architect goes through the exercise of heavily specifying one product that there isn’t an “equal” to that. He described “or equal” as a “cop-out” that allows way too much flexibility. (How is a sub supposed to know what is considered to be equal?)

The specifier does not use “or equal” in his specs, because the phrase is full of uncertainties. “Or equal… determined by whom?” he asked. He believes that the only equal to a product is the next product on the assembly line of the manufacturer who’s making it. “Equal” is too strict a term to be put out there to be determined by anybody. The specifier prefers a phrase like “Alternatives are welcome to be presented” along with a statement about who approves the alternatives. He believes it’s a more honest way to evaluate alternatives.

We got an interesting question at the end of the panel discussion from a chapter member about “or equal” and public work. Some government owners require that “or equal” be added to a list of products or manufacturers. We discussed different ways to define “or equal” in the construction documents, and procedures for evaluation. Some government entities do not actually define “equal,” or give any guidelines for procedures to evaluate “equals,” but still require that the phrase be included.

We’re not sure about “no substitutions.”

The owner’s rep would never advise an owner to require “no substitutions” in the spec.

When asked how much pricing is affected when competition is limited by specifying “no substitutions,” the general contractor responded that the problem is that you don’t know. The suspicion is that higher pricing does result when there’s no competition.  We’re in a competitive environment, and if someone is sole sourced, they may take advantage of that and bump up their price.

In the subcontractor’s experience, typically an owner doesn’t end up with higher prices when a sole source with no substitutions is specified. For curtainwall, pricing is only given to select vendors, and some can provide better pricing than others in bids, but their numbers probably won’t change based on how many manufacturers are named. Separate from the pricing issue is a service issue; the subcontractor mentioned that some vendors may have more leverage to get replacement products out on the jobsite faster than others.

The earlier a substitution request is made, the better.

Everyone generally agreed that the earlier a substitution request is made, the better.

The specifier pointed out that procedural requirements for substitutions that happen prior to the bid are not part of the contract documents – they’re part of the instructions to bidders. In these cases, approved substitutions are no longer substitutions at the time the contract is signed – they become part of the contract. Procedural requirements for substitutions that happen after the bid are part of the contract documents.  Also, substitutions that happen after the bid are divided into substitutions for cause and substitutions for convenience – requests for substitutions for cause are submitted when things are not available, manufacturers don’t make something anymore, etc. MasterSpec specifications software suggests that all substitutions for convenience should be received within a certain number of days after the construction contract is signed.

The owner’s rep’s projects typically have negotiated contracts, so don’t have hard bid dates. He said that as long as substitutions are decided upon prior to signing the contract, substitutions are fine.

The general contractor believes it’s best to require substitution requests to be submitted prior to the bid, but from a practical standpoint, it makes sense to accept some substitutions after the bid.

The architect’s contract administrator sounded somewhat resigned as she said that substitutions are going to happen before, and after, the contract is signed. It’s better to receive the substitution requests at the right time, before the bid. But even more important than timing is that the general contractor should actually review the substitution request before sending it on to architect (and not just stamp it and pass it on without actually reviewing it).

The subcontractor thinks that it’s good to receive substitution requests during and after the bidding process, because the project benefits from time for the team to collaborate. The best results, best pricing, best performance, best product can come out of collaboration. Any other way is subjective – just one person’s opinion. The project can get to a higher level with collaboration, with everybody involved.

Can we eliminate the substitution process?

A guest attending the meeting asked how we get rid of this substitution process. The subcontractor on the panel said that the only way to get rid of the substitution process is to write performance specifications instead of specifying products, manufacturers, or descriptions that point to specific manufacturers.

CSI’s Construction Specifications Practice Guide defines a performance specification as “a statement of required results with criteria for verifying compliance, but without unnecessary limitations on the methods for achieving the required results.” The book cautions that “an incomplete performance specification results in a major loss of quality control over the materials, equipment, and workmanship going into a project.” The criteria for verifying compliance need to be “capable of measurement, test, evaluation, or other acceptable assurances.”

In performance specifying, no products, manufacturers, or installation requirements are specified. Anything that can meet the required results, and whose compliance with the required results can be verified, meets the spec. In performance specifying, although a product is not named in the spec, it meets the spec if it meets the required results indicated in the spec. Even though it’s not named, a substitution request is not necessary.

Performance specifying transfers some design duties and control from the design team to the contractor team. It allows many more options to be presented to the general contractor. It takes some control away from the architect and the owner – if they don’t like the way something looks, they may not be able to point to the spec and say that something doesn’t meet the spec. If it performs the way the performance specification requires, it meets the specification, and cannot be rejected without a change order.

Thank you to the panelists: Tom DeBerard of DAE Construction Services, Stan Ward of Ward Construction, George Feathers III, currently of Curtain Wall Design & Consulting, Inc., Morayma Salas of Cuningham Group, and David Bishton of Construction Rx, LLC.

Substitutions in the Construction Industry: A Panel Discussion, on January 13

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Next week I’ll be moderating a panel discussion on substitutions in the construction industry at the monthly meeting of the Denver Chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI).

Panelists will include an owner’s rep, a general contractor, a subcontractor, an architecture firm’s construction contract administrator, and a specifier. It should be a lively discussion.

All are welcome! If you’re in the Denver metro area, I encourage you to come. You must register in advance, by Friday at noon. The meeting is on Tuesday, January 13, at the Lakewood Country Club from 11:30 am to 1 pm. Lunch is included. For non-members, the cost is $20. For more information, and to register, go to the Denver CSI website.

I’ve written about substitutions in our industry before, here, here, and here, but only from my point of view – that of an architect and specifier. This panel should have various points of view on the issue… and that should be helpful to all of us, as we strive to do our work better.

Missing Scope

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David Stutzman of Conspectus wrote a blog post last week about his experience finding construction document scope omissions and other issues in a set of progress construction documents. These omissions and issues would have amounted to lots of scope of work missing from the construction documents (leading to change orders), and some potentially serious construction and building performance problems, had he not commented on them to his architect-client.

Dave asked, “So why is the specifier finding this? Well given the time, finding stuff like this and asking questions is all part of the job. This is what goes on in the background and owners are never even aware. Most owners don’t know if a specifier is involved and rarely, if ever, know who it is. Yet it is often the specifier who keeps the projects out of trouble and all without the owner knowing.”

The reasons specifiers often find problems such as Dave found are because of Dave’s reasons above, and also because of the way specifiers approach their work in the planning stages. Like Dave, I prepare a table of contents to include with my fee and services proposals. Sometimes I have the architect’s DD drawings to look at, sometimes I just have a concept design narrative.

The reason I do a table of contents with my proposal is because I approach the project from a point of view of the whole picture. I want to consider every spec section we might possibly need. Then I remove from my list what we don’t need, and there’s my table of contents – my scope.

Instead of gathering up my scope bit by bit, and building up my table of contents, by adding each section I think we’ll need, I consider all of the potential scope, and then delete what I know we don’t need, subtracting from my master table of contents to get down to my project table of contents.1

For me, creating a table of contents is not like building with Legos, it’s like sculpting stone; in creating a table of contents, I just chip away all that is not part of the project.

Like Dave does, in my proposed table of contents next to the sections that I expect to be someone else’s work, I indicate that. I’ve never had an experience as extreme as the one described in Dave’s post, but I regularly have similar experiences on a smaller scale, where some necessary project scope is just missing from the work of architect/consultants/specifier. I’m often the first person to notice the omissions in progress sets, even though I don’t ever see other consultants’ proposals.

As most design professionals who have worked with specifiers know, we are extremely detail-oriented people. We get deep into the details. However, in order to know where to go to dive deep, we have to lay out our plan of action first. We see the big, big picture. That’s partly because we often prepare Division 01, which prompts a whole lot of questions about procedures during construction, and a whole lot of questions about what is in the Owner-Contractor agreement. It’s partly because we lay out our project road map (table of contents) very early, so we don’t get burned, fee-wise.

I never approached projects in this manner when I worked as a project architect. There was no listing of all the drawings that I might need anywhere in my office or anywhere else that I knew of. I actually don’t know any architects who approach projects in the same way most specifiers approach projects.

However, this approach would be a good way for an architect who is the owner’s prime consultant on a project to approach the division of design work, and to verify that all design work, and the production of all construction documents required for the project, is assigned to someone, and is accounted for in consultants’ proposals if the architect isn’t doing it. This would help ensure that the owner is getting what he thinks he’s getting for the contractual design fee – a completely designed project. This would also help prevent massive change orders due to missing scope during construction.

If an architect can’t take this approach, he or she should at least note all explicit exclusions by consultants in their proposals, then verify that the architect or another consultant is covering that work, and if not, verify that the owner does not need that work to be done. If the owner does require that work, the architect should get that work added into someone’s scope before construction begins.

 

Notes:

1. CSI’s MasterFormat is the Master-Master Table of Contents, but I usually just use MasterSpec’s complete Table of Contents as my Master Table of Contents, plus some additions of my own.

Cheerleaders, Mentors, Colleagues

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One of my biggest cheerleaders recently passed away. I never got to meet him in person, although we corresponded via email occasionally, and talked on the phone sometimes.

Ralph Liebing was 78 years old, but still worked every day. He was an architect and a specifier; he did the same work that I do. I subscribed to his weekly newsletter; he frequently commented on my blog posts. We often wrote about the same topics: construction specifications and the education and training of emerging design professionals. He had a long history of teaching in architecture and technical schools. We worked together on a volunteer effort for CSI, for a Building Technology Education Program.

Ralph encouraged me in my blog writing, and in our efforts on the Building Technology Education Program. He really reached out to me, sending me an occasional little quiz on some building assembly or another, telling me about his family, congratulating me on mentions in CSI publications, and emailing me the occasional “Have a great weekend,” or forwarded curiousity. I own 2 of the 11 textbooks that he authored. I tried to teach him a little about social media, updated him on Denver’s weather, and told him about my family.

He worked for an architecture and engineering firm; I am independent. I don’t work with other specifiers; I don’t even work with other architects in my office. This is part of why Ralph was so important to me. As an independent, I am on my own in my work. But when I joined CSI, I found that I’m not really alone. CSI brought me Ralph, and other people who have helped me along the way in my career.

I had been writing specs for over a year when I joined CSI. I knew about CSI, because I’d taken the CDT exam before I started writing specs.

When I started writing specs, I worked as an independent contractor to a specifications firm that had employees and independent contractors, but I did my work mostly at home. My kids were little, 2 and 4 years old. I hadn’t worked for 4 and a half years. My husband’s business was a major source of stress for me at the time. I was busy BEFORE I started working in specifications, but I fit the work in. CSI wasn’t emphasized by the spec writer I worked for, and joining a professional organization was NOT on my to-do list. I barely had time to sleep, sometimes.

After 8 months of being an independent contractor, I was fully on my own. One day, one of my clients mentioned something about my being “in the loop” with CSI, and I realized that I needed to GET in the loop in order to be my best at my work. I owed it to my clients. So I finally joined CSI, but it was months before I made time to get to a Chapter meeting!

After I started going to meetings, and meeting other CSI members, I quickly realized how important my CSI involvement is to my work. I’ve found a network of colleagues, with technical knowledge about construction, that is essential to me. I’ve been extremely lucky to find mentors in CSI all across the country who have offered me various types of challenging and rewarding opportunities that have helped me in my career. And I found a very special cheerleader in Ralph Liebing. Ralph was important to many other people in the same way. He will be greatly missed in our CSI community.

I never expected these relationships that I’ve found through CSI. These relationships are the main reason that CSI rocketed from being something I made myself find time for, to being something vital to my career.

Illogical (part two)

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Here are some possible solutions to the unsustainable situation outlined in part one of this post:

Colleges and universities could stop increasing the price of tuition, or even decrease it.

Parents and high schools could stop pushing all kids towards 4-year college.

  • A 2011 Harvard University study, “Pathways to Prosperity,” points out that of the 47 million new job openings projected over the decade ending in 2018, about one-third will need people with bachelor’s degrees or higher, one-third will need people with associates degrees or occupational certificates, and the last one-third will go to high school grads and lower.
  • “Pathways to Prosperity” also stated that “nearly 70 percent of high school graduates now go to college within two years of graduating. But… only about 4 in 10 Americans have obtained either an associate’s or bachelor’s degree by their mid-twenties. Roughly another 10 percent have earned a certificate… Only 56 percent of those enrolling in a four-year college attain a bachelor’s degree after six years…”
  • So, two-thirds of the jobs out there will be for people who have less education than a bachelor’s degree. Almost half of those who enroll in a four-year-college don’t finish. This tells me that not everyone should be going to college.
  • When student loans are thrown into this mix, it becomes really obvious that many kids are being guided down the wrong path.

Back to architecture: The profession of architecture could change a lot.

1.  Architects could charge higher fees, and pay employees more.

Other professionals manage to do this, but architects don’t anymore. Why can’t architecture firms charge enough to keep their employees from being crushed by their student loan debt? If I look at it as a supply-and-demand issue, I have to conclude that either architects aren’t delivering what owners expect and need (there’s not much demand), or there are too many architects (there’s too much supply).

To be able to deliver what owners expect and need, and to be able to charge fair fees for these services, architects need to get more technical.

Architects should keep technical expertise in-house or under their umbrella. I am not talking about computer software; I am not talking about Reviteers. I am talking about building code expertise. I am talking about an understanding of building technology (knowledge of the technical processes and methods of assembling buildings). I am talking about comprehension of building science. (“If architects did their job there wouldn’t be any need for building science.” – Joe Lstiburek.1) I am talking about effective construction contract administration.2

A building owner has just one financial “pie” of a certain size for each project. Everyone involved in the design and construction of the building gets a piece of the pie. Architects keep giving away profitable tasks (usually just by not doing a good enough job at them, so the owner hires someone else to do that part next time) and keep receiving a smaller piece of the pie. Owners sometimes hire code consultants, and sometimes hire building envelope consultants. Sometimes contractors hire building envelope consultants. Owners often choose Design-Build, or Construction-Manager-as-General Contractor, or IPD project delivery methods, all of which give the contractor more of the pie.

Why are owners making these choices? Architects haven’t been delivering. Architects’ piece of the pie gets smaller, because they’re doing less of the essential work; they’re doing less of the technical work. That work still has to get done. If architects take back the technical work, and do it properly, architects’ piece of the pie can get bigger.

2.  States could bring back the apprenticeship path to licensure.

Tuition at NAAB-accredited architecture schools often costs a lot of money. But only a small percentage of what accredited schools teach actually contributes to students’ knowledge of the instruments of service that building departments and owner-architect agreements require. Accredited schools generally place most of their focus on design and theory, and barely touch on building codes, construction documentation, and construction contract administration. They don’t teach much building technology or building science.

Tuition at technical schools  and community colleges is much more affordable. Their curricula usually focus on drafting, modeling, construction detailing, building materials, and construction techniques. Basically, they focus on production, documentation, and building technology. Many firms looking for new employees are looking for production people. Building departments are looking for clear documents that include code-required details. Owners are looking for buildings that won’t leak or get moldy (we prevent these things with an understanding of building technology).

So why does an increasing number of firms refuse to hire people without professional degrees? The focus in schools offering professional degrees is design (the work that firm owners and current employees want to keep to themselves). Why not hire some people with associate’s degrees, who are trained and ready to do production, and probably understand how to draw roof and wall details much better than newly-minted BArch’s and MArch’s?

Colorado is one of a handful of states that still have the apprenticeship path to licensure (in Colorado, you don’t need any college degree – you just work for 10 years under the supervision of a licensed architect, and then you’re eligible to sit for your licensing exams). I think this is a good alternative to the professional degree path.

If a professional degree from an accredited school isn’t required for licensure, architect-hopefuls wouldn’t have to borrow huge sums of money for school. They could go to technical schools or community colleges, and then get work experience, and then get licensed.

3.  NCARB could make its alternative route to certification less expensive.

NCARB requires each certification candidate to have a professional degree from an accredited school. There’s an alternate route to NCARB certification, through the Broadly Experienced Architect Program. However, a dossier review fee could be as high as $5,000 if an architect who is licensed in an NCARB member state, but who didn’t go to an accredited school, wishes to pursue NCARB certification. This makes it tough for many people who wish to get licensed in additional states.

4. The AIA could Reposition in a different direction.  

The AIA launched its “Repositioning the AIA” initiative earlier this year. The goal of the initiative is to “determine how the Institute should reposition architecture, architects, and how to reflect current client and public perceptions.”

From the strategic marketing firm working on the repositioning: “One of the great kind of a-ha moments for us was understanding that architects are no longer those who specialize in the built environment… a lot of people who now call themselves, and are trained as, architects are not building physical things anymore, you’re building design solutions that address societal problems. It’s not bricks and mortar; it’s systems, it’s constructs, but in all these things that you’re building, you’re creating something that matters.”3

If architects are “no longer those who specialize in the built environment,” who is? If we no longer specialize in the built environment, what, exactly, do we do? Why would we want our work to differ so extremely from the way our states legally define the work of an architect? Why would the AIA wish to reposition its members in such a way that not only do we no longer do the work that the states license us to do, but we do something else, something that is not regulated, and does not require licensure, and which, therefore, legally, anyone could do?

Architects should be focusing on getting better at what we are licensed to do. Once we’ve perfected that, we can add other services to our portfolios. We should not be throwing away what we are licensed to do, doing something else instead, and still trying to call ourselves architects.

Some owners who wish to build buildings think of architects as just a necessary evil. I suspect that government requirements for licensed architects to stamp and sign construction documents are the only reason that most architects who were employed during the Great Recession kept their jobs.

Design is not regulated. Architecture is not only Design. And if we start treating architecture as if it is just Design, but is the design of anything we desire (and can sell to someone), the profession will be lost, fees will go even lower, and those young architecture grads will never get out of debt.

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Notes:

  1. Read the whole Inhabitat interview with Joe Lstiburek of Building Science Corporation.
  2. CSI, the Construction Specifications Institute, can help with building technology education and with effective construction contract administration. CSI is working on a Building Technology Education Program, and has a well-established education track for Construction Contract Administration in its CCCA certification.
  3. Watch the whole Repositioning (the AIA) at Grassroots: 3/21 General Session video.

Square Peg, Round Hole?

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Does anyone else think it’s funny to see CSI MasterFormat 2004 section numbers rammed into the old CSI MasterFormat 1995 categories in construction estimates?

This is what most of the construction estimates that I see look like:

Division 1 General Requirements

01 50 00 Temporary Facilities and Controls

Division 2 Site Work

02 41 19 Selective Demolition

31 00 00 Earthwork

32 12 16 Asphalt Paving

Division 15 Mechanical

22 00 00 Plumbing

23 00 00 HVAC

Division 16 Electrical

26 00 00 Electrical

It looks funny to see section numbers that start with 22 put under Division number 15.  In the olden days, like maybe in 2003, the same info would have looked something like:

Division 1 General Requirements

01500 Temporary Facilities and Controls

01732 Selective Demolition

Division 2 Site Work

02300 Earthwork

02741 Asphalt Paving

Division 15 Mechanical

15000 Mechanical

Division 16 Electrical

16000 Electrical

See how nice and neat that looks with those first 2 numbers of each section matching the Division number of the category?  But then the spec writers went and started using different section numbers.  So there was some confusion, a period of transition…

But now, 9 years after MasterFormat 2004 was published, I’d expect this same info to be categorized like this:

Division 01 General Requirements

01 50 00 Temporary Facilities and Controls

Division 02 Existing Conditions

02 41 19 Selective Demolition

Division 22 Plumbing

22 00 00 Plumbing

Division 23 Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning

23 00 00 HVAC

Division 26 Electrical

26 00 00 Electrical

Division 31 Earthwork

31 00 00 Earthwork

Division 32 Exterior Improvements

32 12 16 Asphalt Paving

But mostly, it’s not.  Those square pegs keep getting rammed into those round holes.

  

Communication Breakdown?

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Ever feel like you just aren’t being heard?  Ever feel like you aren’t sure exactly what someone’s talking about?  I do.

We hear a lot about how we work in “silos” today; we often work a little bit too independently from the rest of the people we’re supposed to be teaming with.  We make assumptions about the work of others (and then build our work from there); we sometimes make incorrect assumptions (and that affects our work negatively).

I love working independently, and I love working with other architects, but… the more I understand about the other people affected by my work, the better I can do my work.

When architects understand more about the point of view of a contractor, a subcontractor, a manufacturer, a supplier, or an owner, we can understand them better, we can make ourselves understood better, we can have a better team.  We can have a better construction process!

I often work on trying to learn more about the perspectives of others in the construction industry, but my first big step towards a better understanding was taking the CSI CDT exam.

The CDT (Construction Documents Technologist) exam covers a lot of information about preparing, understanding, and interpreting construction documents, and the roles of different groups in the construction process.

It was my first non-project-related introduction to the processes involved on the contractor side of the team.  There’s a lot I’d still like to learn, about the perspectives of the owner and the contractor during construction, but the CDT exam was a good start.

Learning more about where others are coming from can help you avoid communication breakdowns.

  • Final registration deadline for CSI Spring Certification Exams is February 28th.
  • Exams will be offered April 1 – 27, 2013, in the U.S. & Canada.
  • Learn more at http://csinet.org/certification

What is “Building Technology”?

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I often mention “building technology” in my blog posts.  I’ve realized that I’m using a term that many people aren’t familiar with.

When I use the term “building technology,” I am not talking about information technology within a building.  I am not talking about the software technologies used to design buildings.  I’m not talking about only high-performance buildings.  I am not talking about only new technologies in building systems.

I am talking about “technology” in terms of its most basic, stripped-down definition: “1. The practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area. 2. A manner of accomplishing a task especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge.”  (Definition is from Merriam Webster.)

And I am talking about “building” as defined by Webster, too: “The art or business of assembling materials into a structure.”

When I use the term “building technology,” I mean knowledge of the technical processes and methods of assembling buildings.  Drawing proper construction details requires understanding building technology.  Identifying conflicts between the construction documents and the way things are being built on the job site requires understanding building technology.

Knowledge of building technology is an important part of the practice of architecture, but it’s an area in which many of today’s young architects are weak.  This is an area in which I was weak, until I started writing specs and suddenly had starting points for researching my questions (or rather, I suddenly realized what questions I ought to be asking).1

We hear a lot about high-performance new technologies in buildings, but somehow, we seem to have lost the basics of knowledge about detailing foundation, roof, and exterior wall assemblies that meet the minimum of the applicable code requirements.

Without an understanding of basic building technology, an architect cannot properly prepare construction documents for submittal to the authorities having jurisdiction for the purposes of obtaining a building permit.

From the 2009 International Building Code (which has been adopted by many municipalities), Chapter 1, 107.2.4 “Exterior Wall Envelope”:

“Construction documents for all buildings shall describe the exterior wall envelope in sufficient detail to determine compliance with this code. The construction documents shall provide details of the exterior wall envelope as required, including flashing, intersections with dissimilar materials, corners, end details, control joints, intersections at roof, eaves or parapets, means of drainage, water-resistive membrane and details around openings.” 

Without an understanding of basic building technology, an architect cannot demonstrate (to an owner, to a contractor, or to the building department) the constructability of a design.  A building is not made up of bits and pieces erected next to each other; a building is composed of interrelated systems and assemblies that work together to contribute to the building’s proper functioning.  If these components are not carefully selected, specified, and detailed, with the designer taking into account these components’ effects on all the other parts of the building, the completed building may not be able to protect its occupants from drafts, moisture intrusion, mold, condensation, cold, outside noise, or excessive heat.

When I worked as a project architect, I often put off the detailing of tricky conditions until the last possible time.  I know that some other architects do, too.  Drawing construction details is hard work.  There are other, more fun, more easily achieved, tasks that also must be accomplished before a set of construction documents is finished.  But waiting to detail the tough transitions is a problem – when we finally get into the meat of these things, sometimes we realize that the assumptions we’d carried all along were incorrect, and we need a taller parapet, or we need more rigid insulation in the cavity, or we need a building expansion joint.

This detailing work can be less tedious, less torturous, and less time-consuming when we have more knowledge and more understanding of these things.  We produce better construction documents, and help to get better buildings built, when we know more about building technology.

Without an understanding of basic building technology, we can’t contribute much to high-performance building initiatives, such as those by the Building Enclosure Technology and Environment Council (BETEC) of the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Building Technologies Program, the U.S. Green Building Council, and many cities and states.  Just as the IgCC (International Green Construction Code) is an overlay to the other ICC codes (such as the International Building Code), high-performance building technology does not replace, but enhances, basic building technology.

But… who’s teaching architects about basic building technology today?

Architecture school curricula have gotten heavier on design; architecture graduates are supposed to learn almost everything else they need to know during their internships.  But as more and more knowledgeable gray-haired architects retire, many of the mentors for interns and young architects know less about basic building technology than the mentors of the past.

CSI (the Construction Specifications Institute) recognizes this problem, and is currently exploring the concept of a Building Technology Education Program.  The task team for this program has been charged with formulating “the concept of a building technology education program for participants in the design/construction industry that will benefit the industry by raising the technical knowledge of the participants.”  I don’t think a program like this exists today, and I don’t think that any other organization is working on anything comprehensive like this proposed education program.2

This program is envisioned as being for everyone in the construction industry – not just for intern architects and emerging professionals.  (Architects, remember: we’re part of the construction industry.)  The more that everyone in the industry can understand the concept that all parts of a building are interrelated, and that a modification to one assembly may require modifications to other assemblies, the more effective all of us in the construction industry can be.

Notes:________________________________________________________________________________

  1. Here are some links to past blog posts of mine that discuss technical weakness in architects – including my own past technical weakness.  I have greatly increased my understanding of building technology – anyone can.
    1. https://lizosullivanaia.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/architects-take-back-the-reins/
    2. https://lizosullivanaia.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/the-fervor-of-a-convert-part-one/
    3. https://lizosullivanaia.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/the-fervor-of-a-convert-part-two/
  2. Here’s the roster of the Building Technology Education Program Task Team on the CSI website http://new.csinet.org/csi_services/committees.aspx.  (Scroll down to “FY 2013 Building Technology Education Task Team.”)  If you have suggestions for the team, please contact one of the members.