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Context
I am a firm believer in having a team follow a project from inception to completion. It has a number of benefits:
- The designers and staff producing the working drawings are the most familiar with the project and in the best position to respond appropriately to requests for changes.
- It forces the designers and working drawing staff to deal with all the decisions and details that have not been resolved by the start of construction rather than allowing them to foist them onto unsuspecting contract administration staff.
- It exposes designers to the realities of work on a construction site in the heat of summer or the icy blasts of winter.
- It gives designers and office staff experience with the real world buildability of the details they have designed or drawn.
Admittedly, we can’t afford to have the entire design/production team of every project involved in the contract administration of every project, but over the course of several projects, all staff should be exposed to both office and field functions during contract administration. It makes for better understanding of the issues faced in the field, and hopefully for better, more buildable, and more efficient designs.
The Lesson
I worked for one practice where the design, working drawing and contract administration departments were staffed by separate teams. Not only was it very difficult to move from one team to another to gain broader experience, some of the chief designers had never been in the field. On one occasion, I went to a designer because one of the details was unbuildable. The detail had three components. A and B had to be assembled first, then the AB assembly was attached to part C. Unfortunately C couldn’t be fastened to B because A covered the access to the bolts.
I explained this to the designer, but he was not amenable to changing the design. I advised him that the contractor would likely change the detail to make it easy to assemble in the field, and do so without the designer’s input with less concern for design intent than we would have, and that this would likely take place at such a point in time that pressure from the schedule meant we had little choice but to accept the contractor’s redesign. The designer insisted that the detail remain unchanged.
In the end, as the person responsible for contract administration of the project, I redesigned the detail without the designer’s further involvement, both maintaining the design intent and creating a buildable detail. Because of the office policy of separating the design and contract administration functions, the designer never had the opportunity to go to site to see how any of his details survived the transition from his desk to the real world.
What was Learned
We live and design in the real world. No matter how elegant, delightful, or rigorous a design is, it still must be buildable. If it isn’t buildable then someone will either send it back to be redesigned or will change it until it is buildable. The first response costs unnecessary time and effort. The latter response may be done by someone with no design sensibilities and with inadequate knowledge or without any input from the design team. If a design detail is not buildable, you don’t know what you will end up with on site.
The lessons do not represent OAA policy or guidance but rather are actual experiences from construction contract administration that taught the author a valuable lesson from which others may benefit.
Updated: 2022/Nov/23