Design-Build: Flawed System
In continuation of our ‘Architect-Led Design-Build’ series, today we are going to take a deep dive into what and how we as an industry currently deliver buildings to market.
As we previously mentioned in our blog post titled ‘Design-Build: Past to Present,’ we outlined how we used to deliver great Architecture. Traditionally that was done with a design-build model spearheaded by the Master Builder. Check out that previous BLOG post to get the pretext to this one! We will get into how and why that model allowed for soulful Architecture and how we can get back to that in a future post, but in this post, we will focus on what the industry is currently doing, and the mechanics of the prevalent project delivery methodology.
By now, we know that Design-Bid-Build (DBB) arose out of necessity and because of a variety of macro-market driven factors that are largely out of any one individual’s control. Because DBB is the traditional and most common project delivery method in the construction industry, and its clunky process leaves little room for creativity, innovation or experimentation, it can be to blame for the soul-less built environments, stucco-box clad residential streets and inefficiently built “sick” buildings we find ourselves in today.
DBB follows a very linear, sequential process that is divided into three distinct phases as the name implies: the Design Phase, the Bid Phase and finally the Build (Construction) Phase.
We previously touched on the compartmentalization of the industry. The industry has become so specialized that much like the Central Intelligence Agency operates, everything is on a need-to-know basis. Developers operate in their own siloed worlds of assembling all the parts and pieces to yield the highest Return on Investment and thus will usually select the lowest bidding Architect and Builder for their projects and will rarely value performance, aesthetics or innovation. Architects operate in their own bubble not having a sense of reality to the cost of construction and will design their utopian project only to be brought back to reality by the General Contractor (GC) when the drawings go out for bid or construction. GCs only focus on how to assemble the cheapest possible building, “per plan,” without getting sued. This usually means leveraging their subcontractors and laborers to the maximum extent possible while skirting the building code. “Per plan,” is in quotation marks because that is always the modus operandi of the GC, but per plan at the end of the day is the original plan paired with a plethora of Change Orders that would have bastardized the Architects original intent.
This is how we end up with the soul-less Architecture of today. The process starts at the top, with the Developer or Homeowner, which can be interchangeable. This individual is usually driven by market factors first and quality Architecture second. Their job is to find the deal. They scour the streets via proprietary methods for land that is ripe for the project type they specialize in. Let’s focus on residential to keep the developer and homeowner interchangeable. When the developer identifies a potential deal, they will engage with an Architect to help them visualize the project, and the various siloed professionals that will be necessary to help assemble a set of Construction Documents to bid, permit and ultimately construct the project.
Enter the Quarterback Architect. Usually, the lowest bidding Architect will receive the honors of spearheading, coordinating and documenting the project. This will require juggling an array of siloed engineers, code enforcement agencies and special interest groups each operating within their own areas of specificity and “need to know basis” bits of information. The outcome is a package of information that can be generally understood as assembly instructions for the subject project, dubbed, Construction Documents (CDs). This effort typically represents a significant investment for the developer; industry standard is approximately 25% of the overall development cost on what is traditionally considered a “soft cost.” For a one-million-dollar home, that’s $250K! What we’ve just outlined can be generally understood as the Design Phase.
The Bid Phase is where the CDs get sent out to an array of competing GCs for pricing. This is usually done via a Request of Proposal process where the CDs, project manuals and specifications are distributed to competing GCs for pricing. In a scarcity marketplace, as we’ve generally operated over the past century, GCs are forced to perform these projects on extremely tight margins. These dynamic trickles all the way down to every subcontractor and vendor willing to offer their product or services to the project and results in sub-par performance on every front. This force is felt all the way up and down the chain and bidding process. As subcontractors and vendors submit their bids to GCs, GCs will then assemble budget proposals for the project and submit to the Developer for consideration. Because the Developer will usually select the lowest bidding contractor, GCs are forced to squeeze everything out of their subcontractors and vendors to win the contract. When a developer is unhappy with the results of the bids, this is when they will typically go back to the Quarterback Architect for a Value Engineering (VE) process, further incurring soft costs and extending project schedules. VE is a fancy way of saying, redesigning the project to make it less expensive to build. The revised design can go out for revised pricing and eventually a contract for construction is awarded to a low-bidding GC.
Now that the GC is locked into a price to deliver the building “per plan.” The Construction Phase can begin. The GC will begin the project, and this is where Request for Information (RFIs) begin to fly, as cost saving measures will be proposed in a feeble attempt to save the GCs tight budget.
The Quarterback Architect will then go back to his team of siloed consultants and evaluate what said corner cutting will do to the project, redesign (further incurring soft costs) and issue an, Architects Supplemental Information (ASI), this can then be proposed to the Developer as a cost saving measure and more often than not, approved. This inefficient, slow and painstaking process will play out 1000 times over the course of a project, eventually leading towards a finished building that has little to do with the original vision of the Quarterback Architect or the Developer...
Tune in for a continuation of how we are improving on this broken project delivery mechanism via Design-Build and how we at BONSAI are spearheading the highly specialized world of Architect-Led Design-Build!
