The Meaning of Teamwork

September 17, 2012 by Liz O'Sullivan

Ah, the meaning of teamwork is being discussed again. In a recent online column, Michael S. Weil wrote that I don’t understand the meaning of teamwork. (He was mixed up about my name, which is O’Sullivan, not Sullivan, but he quoted from my blog post on Integrated Project Delivery in his piece.) This post is my response to him.

Sometimes, the most valuable player on the team is the one who demands that each member pull his or her own weight.

Many people understand my above statement pretty well from experiences in their personal lives, especially people who are part of a household with children and 2 parents who work outside the home. It might take time for such demands to be appreciated and to be seen for what they are. It is not always easy to be the “bad guy.” I know both men and women who sometimes have to remind their partners at home that it’s their turn to do something for the kids or something in the kitchen. Speaking up and reminding one’s partner is better for the relationship than not speaking up (and just doing it oneself and resenting it). We need to team up on the things we can’t do alone.

Years ago, when I was the architectural project manager on a school addition/remodel project, I had assistance from various coworkers throughout the project. For the more technical items, such as the design and detailing of the roof assembly and parapets, an architect who was much more experienced than I assisted me. Sometime early in construction, a question from the contractor came up about parapet height and the tapered insulation on the roof. I discussed the issue with my boss, and I offered to figure it out. He said no, have the architect who originally detailed it figure it out and fix it.

I never discussed his reasons with him, but I see a few good reasons for his response: First, it’s good to have people clean up their own messes. (This was not a mess, just a minor miscalculation, but the idea is the same – require people to finish what they start.) Second, it’s important to maintain continuity of thought throughout a problem-solving process – only this other architect knew what factors she had taken into account from the beginning – giving the problem to someone else to solve would have thrown away that knowledge. Third, it’s good to pick the most appropriate person for the task based on skills. Since the other architect was more experienced than I, she was the more appropriate person on our office team to draw those details.

Teamwork on a Construction Project Team

Teamwork! It often means working by oneself, and bringing the products of that work back to the team. Work must be broken down into discrete tasks, and the tasks have to be given to the people on the team who are best-suited to those tasks. Many of these discrete tasks (such as detailing a roof parapet) are best accomplished in solitude. Some (such as compiling a GC’s bid on a bid date) need to be accomplished while working constantly with others. In either case, people must give their all – team members cannot expect others to pick up their slack.

My January 2012 blog post “On Collaboration” discussed my vision of teamwork:

“I think about construction project team collaboration kind of like this:

“If everyone on a project team gives 101%, if everyone does his own job as thoroughly and as best as he can (accounting for the 100%), PLUS goes an extra 1% (tries to anticipate and be proactive about locations where gaps between the work of team members might occur, and tries to overlap a tiny bit) we’ll get to 100% (our best work as a team) on the project.”

The Teeter-Totter

There’s a teeter-totter kind of mechanism in every relationship – if things are to keep moving, the less one party does, the more another has to do. The more one party does, the less another has to do. (You may have grown up calling it a seesaw. I grew up calling it a teeter-totter. It’s a board on a fulcrum; kids often try to bounce each other off it. This activity may end in tears.)

A question for general contractors who have done Construction Manager as Constructor projects – have you ever received unfinished drawings at GMP pricing time and been asked for a ton of input at that point from the architect? Did it feel like a bunch of someone else’s work was dumped on you?

A tough question for architects – have you ever gotten stumped, busy, or lazy on a Construction Manager as Constructor project, and decided to ask the CM for technical design advice, on a question like the appropriate height of a roof curb or flashing, or the appropriate thickness of material for a metal door, or the proper type of paint for the metal bollards, instead of researching it yourself? Do you realize that you were asking the CM to do some of your work for you? (I have done that sort of thing myself, on one project. I was young; I didn’t know what I was doing. It was a mistake.)

The Right Party for the Job

Some CMs have the knowledge and the contacts to do a good analysis of what would be an appropriate design solution in a particular situation. But my personal experience with CMs leads me to believe that many only analyze by cost, and many seem to just forward their questions on to their favorite subs. If the question just goes to one subcontractor, there’s no analysis, just an answer driven by convenience and economics, not by a comprehensive look at what product or detail would be best for the owner, short term performance-wise, or long term performance-wise, or aesthetically.

On a project team, such as the kind we have under a CMc agreement, the contractor is the best person to answer questions about cost and schedule, and the availability of installers for systems and assemblies, but the contractor is not the best person to answer questions about specific products and technical construction details.

A good technically-minded architect (who understands building science, durability, product interfaces, assembly transitions, and building codes), someone who does not have anything to gain financially by recommending a particular product or solution, is the most appropriate person to explore solutions involving specific products and technical construction details. Now, that architect (a firm’s technical director, or the firm’s construction specifier, in many cases) will be getting some of his or her information from people who do have products to sell. But that architect ought to be doing independent research, and ought to be talking to more than one technical sales rep about more than one product for more than one possible solution. The contractor, even a CM getting a preconstruction fee, might not do anything more than talk to one person about the question. The CM is probably not the right party to do this research.

Ethics

As I commented on Antony McPhee’s blog post, I do not doubt that IPD will make the construction industry more efficient. But, I think it will not make aesthetic design better overall, and I think that worse aesthetic design, in general, will be bad for the built environment. There’s also the ethical side of more-contractor-influence for owners to consider. Under design-bid-build and CMc, when different solutions involve products and systems and assemblies that someone sells, the design professional doesn’t get a “cut” or percentage of that sale for specifying it on the project, but the contractor’s profit figure is always based on the cost of the project. In a team relationship such as CMc, the design professional is supposed to be the party evaluating different solutions for their aesthetic value and their performance value over the life-cycle of a building, and the contractor is supposed to be the party evaluating these different solutions for their scheduling and cost issues and installer issues. The contractor, because of the profit factor, should not be the only party evaluating different solutions. Architects should not be taking direction from contractors on products under CMc. What is the expectation under IPD? Everyone designs!

Architects’ Fees

Sometimes, some architects dump some of their work into the laps of CMs. But there’s that owner-architect contract and those general conditions of the contract that spell out the architect’s roles, responsibilities, and obligations, and that delineates architects’ fees. Whether or not they actually accomplish all those obligations, whether the contractor is designing the roof-edge drainage system, or the architect is designing the roof-edge drainage system, the architect gets the fee for designing the roof-edge drainage system.

Architects, do you plan to transfer more of this type of work in the future, under an ever more team-oriented agreement such as IPD? Do you think that “teaming” means doing less of the work that architects have traditionally done, and getting the same fees? Do you understand that if you keep giving away work, such as technical design work, you will keep receiving lower and lower fees over time? Do you know what IPD may lead to in the future?

Under CMc, the CM usually gets a preconstruction fee. Preconstruction services are often a great value to a project and to an owner. But that fee has to come out of the one project cost “pie” that the owner has. When one party does less work, another has to do more work, and should be compensated properly for that work. There’s one “pie” of one size. The more work architects give away, whether contracted to do that work or not, the lower their fees should be. Is this what architects want? It’s not what I want.

The Technically-Minded Architect

Architects, get, and keep, a technically-minded architect on your team. In house, out-of-house, wherever, but keep this person under your umbrella. Pay this person fairly. You know you need him or her under design-bid-build, to reduce change orders and to preserve your reputation. CMc can be a better value for the owner if the architect has this technical person on the design team. Architects, if you want less erosion of architect fees under IPD, you need a technically-minded architect on your team. If you don’t have people like this, and you want to start developing some, a good place to start is by getting some of your team members involved in CSI, the Construction Specifications Institute. There are CSI chapters all over the United States. Canada’s equivalent is the CSC, Construction Specifications Canada.

Teamwork Summary

Demand that each member pull his own weight.

Put the right party on each task.

The right party to evaluate the suitability of products and assemblies and systems, without the influence of profit to gain, should be on the design team. This will provide the best value to the owner.

Architects, if you don’t have one, get a technically-minded architect on your team.

GoooooOOO TEAM!

Integrated Project Delivery: What Do Architects Gain? More Importantly, What Do Architects GIVE UP?

August 19, 2012 by Liz O'Sullivan

Many architects are excited about the concept of Integrated Project Delivery. The AIA defines Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) as “a method of project delivery distinguished by a contractual arrangement among a minimum of owner, constructor and design professional that aligns business interests of all parties.” It describes IPD as “a collaborative project delivery approach that utilizes the talents and insights of all project participants through all phases of design and construction.” It sounds great. We architects love to collaborate, and we understand that good buildings depend on collaboration with other team members, such as owners and contractors.

The AIA’s “Integrated Project Delivery: A Guide” indicates that IPD’s benefits to designers are the following:

“The integrated delivery process allows the designer to benefit from the early contribution of constructors’ expertise during the design phase, such as accurate budget estimates to inform design decisions and the pre-construction resolution of design-related issues resulting in improved project quality and financial performance. The IPD process increases the level of effort during early design phases, resulting in reduced documentation time, and improved cost control and budget management, all of which increase the likelihood that project goals, including schedule, life cycle costs, quality and sustainability, will be achieved”.

These are good benefits; this is important information for architects and engineers to have, so that they can do their best in providing their design services to the owner. But design professionals can get these benefits through other means, such as by hiring a construction cost estimator, and by doing a better job of coordinating all the design disciplines.

Architects who engage in IPD need to understand that their role is different under this project delivery method than it is under other project delivery methods. Under IPD, architects are less autonomous than they are in traditional project delivery methods, architects are less influential over design decisions than they are in traditional delivery methods, and the architect’s relationship with the owner is watered down compared to the relationships in traditional delivery methods. This isn’t merely how IPD happens, this is actually how it is contractually conceived.

IPD is one solution to some of the problems in the construction industry today (such as poorly coordinated construction documents, constructability issues with designs, projects coming in over budget, and poor project management by architects during construction contract administration), but IPD is not the only solution.

Architecture firms should not wade into these IPD waters without fully understanding what they’re getting into, and what they’re giving up. They need to understand that they are giving up the chance to work by themselves on the early phases of the design of buildings. They need to understand that they will never have a one-on-one relationship with the owner on an IPD project. They need to understand that they won’t be the party passing communications between the owner and the contractor. They need to understand that although the contractor will have heavy input on the design, the design professional will still have professional liability for the design.

Architecture needs to improve itself as a profession if it is to thrive under IPD, just as architecture needs to improve itself as a profession if it is to thrive at all. IPD isn’t the savior of the architecture profession. IPD cannot make up for architects’ deficiencies in building technology knowledge, deficiencies in understanding of, and administration of, construction contracts, and deficiencies in understanding and implementing building codes. If architecture can improve itself in these areas, maybe architects will find IPD less attractive. If architecture cannot improve itself in these areas, architects are likely to find our profession in just as unhealthy a position when IPD becomes prevalent.

Some comments from others on the subject of IPD:

Thoughts from Barbara Golter Heller, FAIA, in a 2008 article:

“Architects usually assume that their design will be the controlling factor in integrated project delivery; owners want technology to facilitate their control over the project and its process. Owners who focus on cost-saving efficiencies and expedited schedules may not be managing a project in a way that is congruent with the expectations of designers and engineers. If large owners focus as aggressively on economics through technological capabilities as they are currently doing with project delivery methods such as design-build, architects are threatened with lost autonomy. If architecture is to thrive in the new world of technology aided integrated project delivery, architects must clearly communicate the human value of design in the context of cost-driven business incentives.” – Barbara Golter Heller, FAIA

From Antony McPhee, an Australian architect, in a recent blog post:

“Current proposed IPD models marginalise architects… They push the architect out of their role at the beginning of projects, when traditionally architects have had the most influence.” – Antony McPhee

“It explicitly reduces the traditional influence of architects at early stages of a project, and therefore the main driver of design excellence.”- Antony McPhee

“In theory BIM and IPD will provide improved quality of outcomes. But that improvement doesn’t necessarily include better architectural outcomes. It does include reduced time, reduced co-ordination mistakes, the ability to model alternative scenarios. But those scenarios are not necessarily ones involving improving architectural design. As only one member of a collaborative team, it is unlikely the team will appreciate the advantage of letting the architects work through design alternatives. Contrast that with current practice where the architect spends most of the early stages of a project doing just that.”- Antony McPhee

For more thoughts on why architects should become more TECHNICALLY competent, for the sake of DESIGN, see the following:

Ron Geren’s blog post “Towards a More Irrelevant Architect”

Walter Scarborough’s “Specifying Mediocrity? Without a Technical Foundation, Design is on Shaky Ground”

My blog post “Architects, Take Back the Reins!”

And, finally, a paper by Dr. Kevin Burr that explains why a future full of IPD is likely inevitable: “Moving Toward Synergistic Building Delivery and Integration” (scroll down the page to find the paper).

I have not experienced an IPD project, so, even more than usual, I welcome your comments on this post.

Why Does My Spec Writer Ask So Many Annoying Questions?

August 7, 2012 by Liz O'Sullivan

Many full-time specifiers were project architects at some point. We’ve been in your shoes. We are thinking about ourselves in your future shoes, a few months from now, during construction. That’s why we ask you all these questions during the Construction Documents phase.

How do spec writers keep all these questions in their heads?

Well, they’re not always bouncing around in our heads. When we use our master spec sections to prepare project specification sections, we get prompted to think about many little details of construction, spanning a range from bidding to layout, rough construction, finished construction, to warranties and life cycle maintenance. We also think about sequencing, and how things will all get put together, a little more than some other members of the design team do.

But I still have design work, and other stuff to do right now, during CDs. Why do I have to think about these questions now? Why can’t we just address these things in the field?

The process of writing a spec section, much like the process of drawing a construction detail, is part of the process of design. Your spec writer is a design professional, just as your consulting engineers are.

Sometimes spec writers think a little bit like estimators – when we look at product data and specification masters, we consider different product options and selections that need to be made. That’s one reason we ask the project architect questions. We don’t want you to have to make these selections during the submittals part of construction. We want to specify it now. Why? It’s not because we’re control freaks, and it’s not that we’re so concerned about your work load during construction contract administration (although some of us might be control freaks, and I personally am concerned about my architect-clients’ work load during construction). We want to spec these things now because now, during CDs, is the right time.

Some product options are standard and others cost more. We’d rather specify the color you want, now, before the contract is signed, so that there won’t be extra costs in the form of change orders for silly things like colors that are more expensive than the color group the contractor was expecting (and priced).

Sometimes we think like installers or subcontractors. We might ask questions about whether the owner wants vinyl tiles to be under the casework, or to butt to the casework. This is something that might be in spec sections for casework and for vinyl tile. Someone needs to make the owner’s expectations explicitly clear to the contractor. The owner might not care. But the owner might care – the project architect should ask the owner.

Things that ought to be addressed during CDs, and aren’t, often end up costing the owner more money, end up costing the architect more time (and therefore burning through more fee and therefore reducing the firm’s profit) and end up causing the general contractor more stress, because of having to obtain a price on documents that aren’t really complete, and having to then address (argue about) discrepancies between what was actually desired (but not specified clearly) and what was priced (based on fair assumptions).

SOMEBODY HAS TO ADDRESS THESE ISSUES. The most qualified person, and the person who might actually be legally obligated, to address these issues, is the architect. The contractor often ends up making these decisions, and it’s not always the way the owner or the architect would have liked it – it’s better to explain how you’d like it, so the contractor knows, instead of letting him do it however he decides, and then asking for it to be redone later. Redoing things costs the owner extra money.

THE ISSUES HAVE TO BE ADDRESSED AT SOME POINT. They will not just go away. The time to address these things is during construction documents phase, when everything can be considered together before it’s too late. (Before it’s too late to make necessary changes to other things in order to get everything to turn out the way you envision. Nothing in design and construction can be considered in a vacuum. Everything affects, and is affected by, other things.) Try to address everything now, and you’ll have fewer surprises during construction.

Your spec writer is thinking about these relationships between building elements right now, and has taken the time to ask you the questions, and wants to write the specs in such a way that your intent can be achieved during construction.

Take the time now, read your spec writer’s provoking emails now, think through everything now, ask your spec writer questions now, and get all those design decisions made now, so that you’re not scrambling later, under the gun, in the field, during construction.

This is what the sophisticated owner expects.

If You’re an Owner, Do Yourself a Favor: Require Record Specs

June 27, 2012 by Liz O'Sullivan

I have a simple piece of advice for owners who are having buildings built. Require the contractor to submit Record Specifications.

Step 1: Require, as part of the Contract for Construction, that the contractor submit Record Specifications at project closeout. This should be easy. You don’t even need to make up language for it. It’s already in the commonly used AIA A201-2007, the General Conditions of the Contract. Article 3.11, Documents and Samples at the Site, reads, “The Contractor shall maintain at the site for the Owner one copy of the Drawings, Specifications, Addenda, Change Orders and other Modifications, in good order and marked currently to indicate field changes and selections made during construction, and one copy of approved Shop Drawings, Product Data, Samples and similar required submittals. These shall be available to the Architect and shall be delivered to the Architect for submittal to the Owner upon completion of the Work as a record of the Work as constructed.”

Step 2: After Step 1 has been undertaken, request that the architect expand upon this contract requirement in Division 01 of the specifications. CSI’s MasterFormat has created a place for this requirement to be expanded upon – Section 01 78 39 “Project Record Documents.” Arcom’s MasterSpec has some great standard language in this section, including requirements that the Contractor “Mark Specifications to indicate the actual product installation where installation varies from that indicated in Specifications, addenda, and contract modifications.” “Give particular attention to information on concealed products and installations that cannot be readily identified and recorded later.” “Mark copy with the proprietary name and model number of products, materials, and equipment furnished, including substitutions and product options selected.” “Record the name of manufacturer, supplier, Installer, and other information necessary to provide a record of selections made.”

Step 3: If Step 1 has been executed, execute Step 3 (whether or not Step 2 was executed). At project closeout, make sure that the Record Specifications have been submitted by the contractor, along with the record drawings (the “as-builts”). Do not pay the contractor the final payment until these have been submitted.

Step 4: Store the record specifications, in a safe place, along with the record drawings.

A responsible owner might ask me some questions, and I will answer them:

Q1: Will this cost me more money?

A1: Yes, this will add a little bit of money to the construction cost. It will take a little extra time for the contractor to update the record specs every day during construction. It should take a contractor no more than 5 minutes a day, as long as he keeps up with it every day.

Q2: Why would I want to spend this extra money?

A2: Spending this tiny extra bit of money now will save you money in the future. If you have the Record Specifications to refer to in the future, you will save yourself time that you might otherwise have to spend searching for a product name or model number that you urgently need. If you have the Record Specifications to copy and give to other people that you hire to do maintenance on, or an addition to, your building, you will save yourself money because you will be saving the people you have hired some significant time.

Q3: What would these people be spending time on?

A3: If you have an existing building that you want to do an addition to, you might want to match the storefront, the brick, the stucco color, the precast panel concrete mix, the standing seam metal roof profile and color, the tinted glass color, the asphalt shingles, the stone veneer, the tile floors, the wood doors… If you wish to match any of the elements in the addition to their counterparts in the existing building, the architect will have to track down the exact products that were used in the existing building.

Q4: But can’t I just have the architect write “match existing” on the drawings?

A4: Yes, but then the contractor or his subcontractors will have to try to figure out what was used on the existing building. If they don’t really know, or if they have preferred vendors that they purchase from, and don’t try to look too hard beyond those vendors, they might just “do their best” to match the existing. That might be ok, or it might not be ok, but what leverage will you have to make them match it if you really want it to match, especially if you had put your project out to competitive bid?

Q5: Why do I need Record Specs? Isn’t that information on the Record Drawings (the “as-builts”)?

Q6: Usually, specific product names, manufacturers, and model numbers are not on the drawings. That information belongs in the specifications. For example, the drawings should show the extent of, and the details of, a standing seam roof installation. But if you want competitive bids, the specifications should list several manufacturer names and the acceptable product by each, and specific information such as the dimensions of the panel. The drawings might list a generic color, or a specific color might be in the specs, but the type of metal finish (such as Kynar or siliconized polyester) will be in the specs.

Despite your best efforts, things might not go flawlessly. The contractor might not do a great job with these record specs. The architect might not realize that he’s supposed to receive them from the contractor. You might forget to make sure that you get them before you sign that final check. But it’s really, really worth enforcing this common contract requirement.

And, of course, even if everything goes well, you might still waste some time. Last week, a former co-worker of mine received an email from an interior designer who is working on a tenant finish in a space that I worked on 11 years ago. The designer wondered if we remembered the manufacturer of the demountable aluminum and glass partitions in the space. I couldn’t remember, and my old firm no longer had the record documents. The designer actually had the record documents, but “that information wasn’t on the drawings.” I suggested that perhaps she wasn’t looking at the specifications, which were on pages 2 and 3 of the set of drawings. I heard back a few minutes later… the manufacturer’s name was right there, in the sheet specs. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink… But it’s well worth a try.

Today’s Webinar on Submittals

June 7, 2012 by Liz O'Sullivan

This afternoon I attended a great CSI Practice Group webinar. You don’t have to be a CSI member to be part of the Practice Groups. There are practice groups with free webinars for BIM, sustainability, specifying, product representation, and construction contract administration. For info on CSI Practice Groups: http://www.csinet.org/Main-Menu-Category/Communities-2109-14280/Practice-Group

Today’s Specifying Practice Group topic, presented by Dave Stutzman and Louis Medcalf, was “Submittals.” There’s one little tangent from the presentation that I want to elaborate on here:

On a recent project of mine, the lack of a submittal for the contractor’s proposed solution to an unexpected situation caused a problem. The contractor didn’t think that a submittal was required by the contract documents, and the architect didn’t realize that a submittal was required by the contract documents. The contractor could have saved himself some money and time, and could have saved the architect and the owner some time, if the contractor had just prepared a submittal for the architect’s review before proceeding with the work. (Oh, yes, some freshly-installed flooring underlayment had to be removed before the project could proceed. THAT was a waste of time and money.)

If something is added to a project, because of an unforeseen condition, everyone (architect, owner, contractor) often acts as if it’s the first time this sort of thing has ever happened. It’s not. Unexpected things happen all the time on construction projects, and that’s why we have standard processes to deal with them.

Anything that wasn’t originally in the project, but is part of the project now, is in the contract as the result of either a change order or a minor change to the contract. Whether it’s a moisture mitigation treatment for an existing slab, or a whole new roof assembly, whether it was initiated by an owner as a late addition to a project, or it was initiated by the contractor as a solution to an unexpected condition, or initiated as a substitution request because of a sudden product unavailability, it ends up in the contract as the direct result of a change order or a minor change (such as the type authorized by an ASI, Architect’s Supplemental Instructions). Even when the change results in no added cost to the owner, and even when its purpose is solely to repair a mistake made by the contractor, it’s a change, and it should be documented (and submitted on).

Architects and specifiers can make sure that the contract documents require submittals for things that weren’t originally in the project. Requiring submittals for items added to the project during construction is a good idea. In fact, requiring submittals for items added to the project during construction may be even more important than requiring submittals for things that were originally part of the design, since the new element wasn’t originally thought through along with the rest of the design. The contractor’s preparation of the submittal, and the architect’s review of the submittal, act as a double-check mechanism to help make sure that the added item will be appropriate.

If the architect is creating a new spec section as part of an ASI or Proposal Request, the architect should include in the specs a requirement for submittals – just as the spec sections in the original documents did. If the architect is modifying a spec section as part of an ASI or a Proposal Request, the spec section probably already calls for submittals. The architect needs to dictate those submittal requirements in the documents issued during construction.

Then, the architect just needs to make sure that the contractor provides the submittal required by the contract documents; the architect then just needs to enforce the contract documents.

We have typical processes that state submittal requirements for Substitution Requests and for contractor-generated Change Order Proposals. So the architect doesn’t need to reinvent a process; the architect just needs to enforce the contract documents.

If there’s a substitution request generated by the Contractor, the Division 01 spec section “Substitution Procedures” can include language that requires product data and samples to be submitted as part of the substitution request. MasterSpec’s master language already does this very well.

Contractor-initiated Change Order Proposals that are the result of unexpected site conditions are addressed in the Division 01 spec section “Contract Modification Procedures.” The MasterSpec version of this section includes some language for this, but more specific language could be added by the specifier.

When unforeseen site conditions pop up, people often panic, and rush through things, trying to find a solution quickly, to stay on schedule. Just remember – there are probably already processes for these situations in your contract documents, in Division 01 of the specifications. Do not ignore them. This is the worst time to throw out the rules. Your schedule may suffer even more if you ignore submittal requirements. If the requirements for typical submittal info get written into the “rules” (Division 01) and are in there BEFORE unforeseen situations come up (before the contract is signed), it’s easier for the architect to enforce the submittal requirements. It can be difficult to extract a submittal from a contractor after a substitution request or a change order proposal has already been submitted and informally approved.

The Fervor of a Convert (part two)

May 31, 2012 by Liz O'Sullivan

People who have read Part One of this post know that although I often write about technical competence for architects, I have not always been technically competent myself. So, why wasn’t I technically-minded earlier in my life? And, if this technical stuff is so important, why don’t architects learn it all in school?

In the family I grew up in, education has been held in very high regard for generations.¹ When formal education is so revered, it is offered up as the answer to everything; the other side of that is that someone’s lack of formal education is seen as something to pity, even when knowledge and expertise in one’s field have been gained through practical experience.

A recent column by Robert Samuelson² discusses the college education issue. Here’s an excerpt:

“The fixation on college-going, justified in the early postwar decades, stigmatizes those who don’t go to college and minimizes their needs for more vocational skills.” – Robert Samuelson

In my opinion, in the field of architecture, not only does this college fixation stigmatize those who don’t obtain a college degree, it also falsely inflates the importance of the university degree in architecture, and it deemphasizes the importance of the things that aren’t taught in college. Many people overvalue the degree and seem to undervalue the practical work experience in architecture. NCARB overvalues the BArch and MArch. Most states overvalue the BArch and MArch. Many employers overvalue the BArch and the MArch.

Although in most states a professional degree (BArch or MArch) is mandatory for licensure, I believe that those states should reevaluate this requirement.³Yes, most people who have been through the rigors of semester-after-semester of design studio will be better designers than most who haven’t, but schematic design is such a small part of the actual practice of architecture. Not every licensed architect will need to do schematic design. But every licensed architect is required to be technically competent.

During one of my summer internships, I didn’t get along very well with a co-worker – our personalities clashed. One day this co-worker said something important, and I responded with a retort that I now recognize was terribly wrong. He said that I should have been learning more about drafting and construction detailing in architecture school. My response was that I wasn’t going to a vocational school – I was going to a university.

In my mind, not only was there a disconnect between the dirty work of building buildings and the work of designing buildings, there was also a disconnect between the technical work of drawing construction details and the work of designing buildings. Looking back, I suspect that this misconception of mine stemmed from the combination of these 3 things: one, the knowledge that I was on the right track to a career in architecture by pursuing a university degree, two, the feeling that since this technical stuff wasn’t emphasized much at my school it must not be that important, and three, the utterly misguided confidence of a 21-year-old that since I wasn’t very good at the technical stuff, it must not be crucial.

So, if this technical stuff is so important, why don’t schools teach very much of it?

I certainly was taught some things about building technology in school. One very relevant class that I remember was in first semester sophomore year; I was pretty lost when we covered wood framing. I was 18, and I had already known for about 7 years that I wanted to be an architect, but apparently I hadn’t realized that designing wood framing was the sort of thing architects did.

We did our thesis projects in the first semester of fifth year, and second semester we fleshed out the construction details of those design projects. I fumbled through my wall section, probably just using Architectural Graphic Standards to guide me, and possibly not listening very well to my professors…

Those 2 classes may have been the only classes in my program that officially addressed building technology. I do not remember building technology being taught or emphasized in any other classes. (Even my 4 semesters of structures didn’t really address building technology.)

Here’s why: It would be impossible for university programs to teach all the technical information that architects need to learn. On the one hand, the schedule is full. School is a great place to learn how to design, and to study architectural history and theory – things that we wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn on the job. And on the other hand, there’s too much technical stuff to know, and it changes frequently. Every building is different. Each region of the country has different requirements. Firms specialize in different areas of practice. The best place for architects to learn technical things is on the job. As I mentioned in Part One of this post, when it comes to the legal obligations of an architect, the technical things are essential, but the subjects we focus on in school aren’t. This causes some people to suggest that architecture programs shouldn’t be in universities at all.⁴

Although schools cannot teach students all the technical things they need to know, schools can do a better job of preparing students to be able to learn technical things later.

Most architecture grads understand that a degree in architecture is not the end of their learning. I did grasp that while I was in college, but I didn’t realize that it was truly only the beginning of my learning. Schools should emphasize that students’ time at the university is only the beginning of learning about practicing architecture.

Learning challenging things is hard, because people who are learning are always slightly out of their comfort zones. It’s unsettling to be out of one’s comfort zone, and to be responsible for production in an architecture firm, at the same time. It’s difficult, or maybe impossible, to learn things when one was not expecting to need to learn things. Schools should emphasize that students should expect to be out of their comfort zones, and learning new things, for years to come.

Every professor in an architecture program should tell his or her students how the subject matter contributes to the knowledge foundation for the students’ future practice. Every studio project final crit could end with a professor explaining that in real-world practice, schematic design phase may be only about 15 percent of a project, and that the architect would need to produce many very detailed technical drawings to create a set of construction documents that someone could actually build the studio projects from. Some of those detailed technical drawings should be explored in school, as a follow-up to that studio project. Schools should take every opportunity to explain to students that although they aren’t learning or doing many technical things now, they will need to learn them, and do them, later.

The mere combination of knowledge of how to schematically design, and mastery of the modeling or drafting software that one’s firm uses, does not make one an architect. Software skills are just a tool, a starting point, that makes it possible for an intern to work at a firm; an intern has to be able to contribute something to the firm, usually production documents, in order to earn wages and be able to have the opportunity to learn from the firm. Schools should emphasize that, although interns will be contributing team players at the firms at which they work, what they gain in knowledge from their experiences should end up being more valuable than their initial contributions to the firm. Interns should expect to work on production documents, and maybe help out with some design. Interns should expect to be given the opportunity to learn about building technology. (Note that I did not say that interns should expect to be taught about building technology. Nothing is handed to us as emerging professionals in architecture. We have to keep consciously working to learn, all through our careers.)

It’s overwhelming to think that a BArch or MArch, and all the time and money and work that degree takes to earn, is only the beginning of learning how to practice architecture. Maybe this is why so many students don’t comprehend that. But schools need to make sure that their students understand this concept. Schools need their graduates to understand that although they should be ready to work in architecture firms by the time they graduate, they still have much to learn before they can engage in the independent practice of architecture. Perhaps more than anything else, schools must prepare their students for a lifetime of learning.⁵

Notes:

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Including my parents, there are 10 of us in my immediate family. My dad and I have bachelor’s degrees, my youngest brother is currently in law school, and among the other 7, there are 2 medical degrees, 4 master’s degrees, one doctorate, and 1 law degree. These were earned from Georgetown, Columbia, Notre Dame, University of Virginia, and the University of Oklahoma, in public health, Spanish literature, art history, and philosophy. The reason that my mom went to medical school in the 60’s when she was 22 was because her brother enjoyed medical school so much. My mother’s father taught philosophy and law at Fordham. Including this grandfather, three of my four grandparents, who were born between 1900 and 1910, graduated from college. My father’s mother, who was born in 1903, didn’t go to college, and that is a fact that was kind of whispered, rather than stated outright… perhaps so that not too many people would find out. As I mentioned, formal education is considered pretty important in my family.
Robert Samuelson is a journalist who writes economics opinion pieces in the Washington Post. Here’s the column, as published by the Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/samuelson/ci_20714508/degrees-failure-idea-that-everyone-needs-attend-college?source=rss_emailed
Here in Colorado we still have the apprentice/draftsman route to licensure. A college degree is not necessary for licensure as an architect in Colorado. http://www.dora.state.co.us/aes/licensing/requirements-arc.htm#exp However, my understanding is that most Colorado firms do not want to hire an emerging professional who does not have a professional degree (a BArch or MArch).
Garry Stevens’ “Why Architecture Should Leave the University” is really something to think about, even if we just use it as a starting point to improve architecture programs in universities. http://www.archsoc.com/kcas/leaveuniversity.html
So, how do emerging professionals – and everyone else – pursue learning? I plan to address some good ways in a future post.

The Fervor of a Convert (part one)

May 30, 2012 by Liz O'Sullivan

People who read this blog know that I’m a specifier, and therefore pretty technically-minded. But many people don’t know that I haven’t always been technically-minded. I migrated to the technical side of architecture from a place of relative technical weakness. (I wasn’t utterly ignorant; I did know the actual dimensions of a 2 by 4. Some architecture grads don’t.)

I first realized the importance of specifications when I started doing CA (construction contract administration) on the projects that I’d produced drawings for. But it wasn’t until after I started preparing specifications myself that I started to learn and understand more about building technology, building science, construction detailing, and building codes, and finally started learning how to find out information about how buildings actually get put together.

In hindsight, I realized that the technical weakness that I had when I was working as an emerging project manager and project architect was a pretty bad thing, though not uncommon. That type of technical weakness is changeable, it is fixable – but it is NOT defensible.

In this blog, I try to write to the person that I used to be – the intern architect or architectural project manager or project architect who doesn’t fully realize the importance of building technology, building science, and construction detailing.

I have broadened my own focus in architecture. Others can, too. But they have to be open to learning about these technical things; they have to understand the importance of the technical before they can start drawing good construction details. Only with good construction details can architects’ designs be executed the way they have been imagined. The designer who can’t draw, or even recognize, good construction details that communicate to the constructor how to build his design will not be a good designer of anything but unbuilt work.

I write so relentlessly about the importance of the technical things in architecture because I know what it’s like to not think they’re important. I know the results of that attitude – embarrassing moments on the jobsite – because I used to have that attitude. Now that I’ve become a more technical person, I see this issue from another side, and I see clearly that we can do better as a profession.

Looking back now on the early years of my career, I suspect that I had a number of opportunities to learn about building technology and construction detailing that I didn’t take advantage of, because I just didn’t realize the importance. I knew that there were things I needed to learn, but there were so many areas I needed to learn about. I focused on some other areas of practice instead of on building technology. I had to learn how to put together a set of drawings. I had to learn how to communicate with engineers and general contractors. I had to learn how to communicate with owners and potential clients. I had to learn how to write proposals for fees and services. I had to learn how to budget my hours on a project. I had to get up to speed on new versions of AutoCAD when they came out. All these things are important to the practice of architecture, and, of course, spending time on design is important, too.

But I have realized that when it comes to that stamp and seal, knowledge about building technology and codes is absolutely essential to the practice of architecture. Our professional obligations mandated and regulated by governments, building owners’ expectations, and our obligations addressed in our owner-architect agreements and covered by our professional liability insurance, are related to building technology and codes more than to anything else about architecture.

I am still learning about construction, codes, building science, and detailing. We all are, because technologies and codes change – but I still feel like I am catching up to where I should be on these issues, because I still have to research a number of things on almost every project. But I can catch up. All of us can.

As a brand new intern architect, I didn’t know what specifications were. When I first started doing project management, I barely comprehended that specs and drawings were supposed to work together. Then when I started doing CA on projects, the importance of specifications hit me like a bomb. And now I’m a specifier. We all start somewhere. Regardless of the starting point, and regardless of the career destination, architects who want their constructed buildings to look like the designs in their minds must understand building technology.

When I graduated with my Bachelor of Architecture degree, I knew that there was a lot I would need to learn on the job. But I didn’t realize how much there was to learn, and I didn’t realize which things were most important. One reason I write this blog is to tell others the things that I now realize that I should have been trying to learn earlier in my career.

For more about that degree, see Part Two of this post, coming later this week.

Indemnification: I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

May 8, 2012 by Liz O'Sullivan

I’ve been reading contracts again. The AIA A201-2007, General Conditions of the Contract for Construction, has an Indemnification article in it.

Article 3.18 “Indemnification” starts like this: “To the fullest extent permitted by law the Contractor shall indemnify and hold harmless the Owner, Architect, Architect’s consultants, and agents and employees of any of them from and against claims, damages, losses and expenses, including but not limited to attorneys’ fees, arising out of or resulting from performance of the Work, provided that such claim, damage, loss or expense is attributable to bodily injury, sickness, disease or death, or to injury to or destruction of tangible property (other than the Work itself), but only to the extent caused by the negligent acts or omissions of the Contractor, a Subcontractor, anyone directly or indirectly employed by them or anyone for whose acts they may be liable, regardless of whether or not such claim, damage loss or expense is caused in part by a part indemnified hereunder. “

I’m not an attorney, but I’m pretty sure that this clause means that if a passerby is injured on a jobsite, because of something that the Contractor did, if the Owner and Architect get sued for that passerby’s damages, and they have to pay the injured person, the money for the damages attributable to the Contractor will ultimately come from the Contractor, instead of from the Owner and Architect.

I looked at the AIA Document Commentary for this document for some further insight. It says “The contractor’s obligation to indemnify is triggered by an act or omission of the contractor or one of the contractor’s agents or employees, and covers the indemnitee’s loss only to the extent that it was caused by such act or omission. This is comparative fault language: for example, if the indemnitee and all other third parties are found to be 20 percent responsible, the contractor’s obligation to indemnify would extend to 80 percent of the loss.”

The indemnitor is the Contractor, and the indemnitiees are the Owner, Architect, etc. What this says is that if the Owner or Architect is partially responsible for the damages, the Contractor wouldn’t have to pay for the part of the damages that the Owner or Architect is responsible for.

That all sounds fair to me, but, of course, I’m not an attorney, and I do consider myself to be impartial. It sounds fair to me that each member of the team should be required to pay for damages caused by himself, and only for damages caused by himself.

I have come across several Contracts for Construction and General Conditions of the Contract for Construction which have a similar indemnification clause – identical, actually, except that the Architect and the Architect’s consultants are not included. I have worked on at least one project in which the Owner used AIA A201 as the General Conditions, but, through the Supplementary Conditions, deleted “Architect, and Architect’s consultants” from the indemnification clause.

I got into a discussion with someone over lunch today about this particular situation. I asked “How does it help the Owner to exclude the Architect from the Contractor’s indemnity?” I did not get a good answer.

Here’s how I interpret this phenomenon: Owners who do this (strike the Architect from the protection of a Contractor’s indemnity) mistakenly believe that excluding the Architect from this indemnification clause will help to protect the Owner’s interests.

There’s a benefit to an Owner to require that the Contractor pay for damages caused by the Contractor.

There’s a benefit to an Owner to require that the Owner not have to pay for damages caused by the Contractor.

But leaving the Architect exposed to liability for damages caused by the Contractor provides no benefit to the Owner.

The Owner can always sue the Architect. This indemnification clause doesn’t prevent that. Any third party can always sue the Architect. This indemnification clause doesn’t prevent that. If an indemnification clause such as this includes the Architect, it only means that if the Architect gets sued by some passerby, for damages caused by the Contractor, the Contractor will have to cover the Architect’s costs for attorney fees and any damages awarded to the person who brought suit against the Architect.

Owners, please don’t do the extra work of striking the Architect from the AIA A201 indemnity clause. It doesn’t help you, and it could really hurt the Architect.

General Notes and Standard Details

April 16, 2012 by Liz O'Sullivan

“General Notes” can be helpful, or they can cause many headaches.

“Standard Details” can save time, or they can create lots of confusion.

Don’t let your drawings go out with General Notes or Standard Details that haven’t been reviewed. Don’t include General Notes or Standard Details that do not apply to the project “just in case we need them.”

Including inapplicable information in the drawings unnecessarily drives up the cost of the project, and makes it harder for you, the architect, to enforce the applicable information in the contract. Remember: If it’s in the drawings, it’s in the contract. If the contractor keeps discovering inapplicable things in the drawings, you’ll start having to fight over the applicable things.

Delete the stuff that shouldn’t be in the project! Step 1 of that process is to LOOK AT those General Notes and Standard Details, before anyone else does. Review those notes and details the very first time you issue them. To the bidders, to the Owner, to the Construction Manager, to the Consultants, (and to the lawyers, if it comes to that) your General Notes and Standard Details mean just as much as everything else in the drawings.

Architects, Take Back the Reins

February 6, 2012 by Liz O'Sullivan

Things are looking dismal in our profession. We have lots of bad buildings in the U.S. We have record numbers of unemployed architecture professionals, and many of the firms that do have work are getting lower fees for their services. Architects seem to be respected a little bit less every decade by owners and contractors.

And, every decade, a higher percentage of design and construction projects seem to be led by the contractor team.

Yes, there’s a connection. More contractor-led projects lead to more badly-designed buildings, lower fees for architects, less stability for architecture firms, and less respect for architects.

If we want better buildings to make up our built environment, if we want to be proud to be architects, and to be able to support our families on our salaries as architects, we need to change some things about how architects practice. Once we make those changes, we can get back to being the leaders in the design and construction process, and we will have better buildings in the U.S.

Forget about this horrible recession for a minute. I know it’s a big factor in our situation now, in February 2012, and it’s the reason for all the unemployment. But just think back to 2007 or so, when the economy was fine. Even then, we had a bunch of problems that we have now:

We have intern architects clamoring for the right to call themselves “architects” without having to take those pesky Architect Registration Exams.¹
Architecture school costs students more money every decade, yet, every decade, teaches them less that will help them in their practices as architects.²
We have architecture firms recommending Construction Manager as Constructor project delivery to owners.³ We have contractors leading most Design/Build projects, and architects who are happy to partner with them.⁴ Essentially, we have more contractor-led design projects than we did a few decades ago, and architects have played a part in letting this happen, and as a result, we have more bad buildings.
We have some architects who don’t understand owner-contractor agreements, and who don’t know what the project specifications say, administering the contract for construction on design-bid-build projects. They get led around by the nose by contractors, and are not providing to owners the services the owners expected and contracted for. The owners get less value than they should, and therefore the owners have less respect for architects.
We have some architects who don’t know much about building codes, building technology, and construction detailing, yet who are producing documents that contractors are supposed to build from. So we get some building designs that are really poorly executed in construction, and look like junk in a few years.
We have some guys who call themselves construction managers poorly managing the documentation part of bidding and negotiation with their subcontractors, and architects who don’t even recognize how poorly the owner is being served. The architect who doesn’t know much about procurement and contracting, and doesn’t know much about construction, serves very little purpose to the owner on a construction manager project, whether the CM is a good one, or just someone calling himself one.

The more we have design decisions made by contractors (who are driven by costs), the more badly-designed buildings we will get, and the less the public will think that design matters. The less good design people see, the less they think they need it in their world, and the less they’re willing to pay for it, and the more buildings will be built for the lowest price possible, and the more contractor-led projects we’ll have, and the more bad buildings we’ll have, and the fewer practicing architects we’ll have. This is bad for our built environment and bad for our profession.

The more students, emerging professionals, and licensed architects focus on design (the way the building is intended to look) to the exclusion of the technical stuff (the instructions to the contractor for achieving the design intent – the specifications and the construction details), the more we will back ourselves into the corner of having to rely on contractors to design the details. At that point, owners may be pretty easily persuaded by contractors that it’s just a short jump from designing all the details to designing the whole building.

The more architects focus on design, and the less they work on improving their knowledge of construction documentation, construction details, building technology, construction specifications, agreements, and construction contract administration, the more work (including design work, starting with the detailing) will have to be handed over to contractors, which will lead to more bad buildings in our world, lower fees and less respect for architects, and less value to building owners. It’s counterintuitive, but the more architecture schools and architecture firms focus on design (and ignore the technical stuff), the more bad design we’ll see in the world. The focus on design to the exclusion of the technical stuff is counterproductive; we’re “designing” ourselves right out of our traditional scope of work.

Architects need to take back the reins, and keep a firm grip on them. Here’s how:

Architects need to understand that part of their job is to interpret the code and incorporate the code requirements into the project documents.
Architects need to understand what they are drawing, and need to have a good feeling for how the building and their details will actually be constructed.
Architects need to understand that the specifications are contract documents, too, and are complementary to the drawings.
Architects need to understand that they are responsible, (according to the code, and according to their owner-architect agreements) for coordinating the work of all the design disciplines.
Architects need to get better at construction contract administration – they need to understand construction contracts and Division 01 of the specifications as well as the technical sections.

In order to get the chance to produce good designs, architects have to get back to understanding, and properly drawing, the construction details, the way architects used to (before they started handing this architectural work over to contractors). In order to get to work on building designs that are executed well in construction, architects must get back to the basics of understanding building technology, thorough product research, specifications writing, good construction contract administration practices, and good agreements that include fair compensation and appropriate allocation of risk.

Architects need to think about their work in a different way.

Of course, there are good architects whose firms are doing everything they should be. And there are good construction management firms who are true assets to projects. With good architects and good contractors, good working relationships between architects and contractors are possible, and are happening right now. And the owners are often getting a good value. But architects don’t have to have contracts with contractors, or give away work to them, or go along with them to the detriment of the owner, in order to get along with contractors. Good contract documents (clear, concise, correct and complete drawings and specifications) and an understanding of roles and responsibilities during construction are the appropriate foundation for good working relationships between architects and contractors.

The Construction Specification Institute can help architects improve their practices. CSI’s certification programs can help architects develop a better understanding of the construction process, better construction contract administration skills, better construction documentation abilities, and better means of communication with the contractor on projects.

If we don’t change the way many firms are practicing architecture right now, I see a future with fewer practicing architects, even lower fees, more poorly-designed buildings, more poorly-constructed buildings, and less respect for architects. If architects don’t get more technical, but keep focusing on design instead, we’ll actually end up with less good design in the world.