Chapter 2 Designing the building (sketch)

Once the opportunity has been secured the next steps are easy to establish. This doesn't mean that it will be easy to navigate the road ahead. Quite the opposite, most likely it will be jammed with obstacles along the way; However, as this book emphasises, most of the challenges can be easily overcome by following common sense.

Most of the time, the next step is the design. It is time to illustrate the vision. Even the most simple refurbishments require some form of discussion about the look and feel of the space.

Some people can design, some people can’t. Even when we can put the drawings together, that doesn’t mean we have the competence to calculate the size of the columns and reinforcement. We will always need to appoint consultants.

The bigger the project, the more consultants we need. The usual suspects are the architect, the structural engineer, the HVAC engineer, and the electrical engineer. These days, fire engineers tend to get involved in the project too. In Australia, planners are also engaged. I once had to work with a heritage consultant, but I'll tell you more about that in a moment.

I am documented therefore I exist, the mantra for a good development project (sketch)

I am often asked what’s the most important thing, or factor to deliver a development project. Some people might say the funding, while others might say managing relationships, or stakeholders. I like to say it is the documentation.

I find documentation the cornerstone of any development project. I guess, in smaller developments, might be of lesser importance as relationships might be more important since the work is rarely well documented., but in major projects documentation is everything.

Majority of the issues that crop up during construction, when the big costs are rolling in, are often related to poor documentation, or missing information.

The project brief (sketch)

Before we can appoint consultants, we must first ask them for a quotation. In order to be able to carry out the work, they need to have a basic understanding of what is required. This is usually quite straightforward. We either need documentation for a planning application or to explain to the contractor what to build.

Appointing a consultant is rather simple. It is not as complex a task as appointing a contractor. However, we need to prepare a project brief. The bigger the project, the more information the brief will contain. Nevertheless, in most cases, appointing consultants comes down to two main items for each discipline:

Item #1: ensure that all the necessary documentation to lodge the planning application is provided.

Item #2: produce the documentation required for the contractor to produce the shop drawings without having to think.

The Helsinki project and key lessons learned (sketch)

Item #2 above is of particular importance. It can lead to many headaches, and contract variation if it is not well sorted out.

Lesson #1 Two similar projects with different outcomes.

Lesson #2 Define what should be included in the documentation. Contractors and subcontractors should never need to think about design solutions.

The selection of consultants which criteria to use (sketch)

Not all consultants are created equal.

In most cases, as in construction, the cheapest quotation wins the job, but money alone should not be the main or only criterion for awarding a contract.

I once went through a very laborious tender process, and halfway through, the client said, “You made it to this phase. I think you should be proud of it.' I did wonder what there was to be proud of if the client's main focus was only finding the cheapest price for the scope that many consultancies were bidding for.

Depending on the complexity of the project or its objectives, it is important to shop around. Relationships play an important role, however I have never come across a client who is not interested in meeting prospective consultants.

It is also important that the people you meet are the people who will be working on your project, and the consultancy contract should cover this.

Size matters. If your development project is sizeable, it is good practice to appoint well-established consultancies with a strong brand. When things go wrong, as they did in the story I am about to tell you, a stable consultancy will handle the situation much better than a one-person operation.

The story of K, the structural engineer gone rogue and key lesson learned (sketch)

When we consider the main costs of a development project, consultancy fees account for only a small proportion of it. They account for 10% of the construction cost, but if we consider the entire development, this percentage can drop significantly, depending on the cost of the land.

Nevertheless, consultants can severely damage a project. An irresponsible consultant can have a negative impact on the project that far exceeds the value of their total fee.

K's story is unusual, but since I experienced it first-hand, I feel obliged to recount what happened. K was a structural engineer. I have dealt with many structural engineers in my life, but K was in a class of his own.

Our project involved delivering an industrial facility for a company in the logistics sector. It wasn’t a large facility. We're talking about 3,500 m² of commercial space.

Lesson #1 - communication is key

Lesson #2 - have a backup

Lesson #3 - peer reviews.

Lesson #4 - I still don’t really know what happened

Lesson #5 - wasting people’s time with bullshit

Project and design management (sketch)

One day, I took my children to the office. I wanted to show them what I did at work. I remembered that I always wanted to know what my dad did at work, and assumed my children felt the same way.

I found a space for them to sit at work. I explained how the office was laid out and was happy to answer any questions they had during the day. However, they soon became focused on cleaning the office fridge in the dining area, where they found old cakes and Sprites.

However, when I asked them at the end of my working day what they thought about my work, their reply was mesmerising, 'Dad, your work is so boring.'

I would never have described my work as boring, but when I asked them why they sought so, 'you don't do anything all day except talk to people and reply to emails.'

To a certain extent, they were right. As a project manager, I was no longer primarily responsible for producing project documentation, so it was difficult to see where I was adding value to the projects I was working on.

I admit that I stayed away from project management for a very long time for the same reason. I didn’t understand their contribution to a project. However, having experienced so much frustration in delivering my projects, I now understand the role of a project manager in a development project.

Traditionally, projects were managed by architects. In some countries, I have noticed that this is still the case. But as construction became more complicated and different specialised roles started to emerge, it soon became clear that it was better to let the architect focus on the design and let other professionals focus on time and cost management. This also offered clients more peace of mind, as they wanted one point of contact who knew what was happening in their projects. Reporting is therefore a large part of project management.

Contrary to popular belief, project management is not about leadership, but rather about keeping the design team well informed and facilitating decision-making. It is important to ensure that decisions are being made, as this will drive the project forward. Most importantly, as we learned from the story of K, it is important to ensure that communication lines between team members are healthy.

The design programme (sketch)

The design programme is a document with only one purpose. It provides an indication of when the design work will be finished. It is not an exact date. I have dealt with design programmes that were overly optimistic, but not so often with conservative ones.

I have been in situations where preparing the project documentation took four months instead of two. However, I have also been in situations where we were able to start activities ahead of schedule. Of course, it is important to understand the critical path of a development project. We will discuss this in more detail when we cover the construction programme. For now, the most important aspect of the design programme is the flow of information from the client to the designers and stakeholders.

It is important to be able to communicate exactly what is required to the design team, although often the vision can be just one idea. We will soon be discussing the size of each room, heating, ventilation, and so forth. Very precise decisions have to be made, and designers often won't make those decisions on behalf of their clients.

Once decisions have been made, they sometimes need to be approved by different stakeholders. This can be time-consuming and difficult to forecast.

Draconian systems are also complicated to navigate.

Ornament and crime; the London office story and key lessons learned (sketch)

One of my favourite projects, I was dealing with an architect that had a peculiar way to go about things. I never understood what kind of relationship we had with the client, but some of the design solutions that the architect came up with were challenging, and challenges in construction often incur significant costs. I was working on this project as a cost manager.

Two issues spring to mind when I recall this project. The first was related to the design of the staircase in the foyer of the building. Initially, only the subcontractors noticed that each glass panel was bent in two directions. Usually, we can only bend glass in one direction, but the architect wanted to achieve a better curve by bending the glass twice. At the time, there was only one company in Europe that could do this type of work.

When I asked the architect to come up with a better solution, he literally ignored my request. Days later, the client asked us to talk to the subcontractor and try to make it happen. Did the design solution make much difference? I would say not, as the end result wouldn't differ much from that of any other staircase.

The second issue was the stone selection. Later, when the architect had to go to Italy to select the marble for the building, I was astonished by his behaviour. After spending the week driving from quarry to quarry, he rejected every block of marble that was presented to him, ‘too many veins,’ he said.

The above story is just one example of many. I have worked on many high-profile projects, so observing designers trying to raise the bar and developers putting the brakes on was a common occurrence. However, I have also been involved in many industrial projects where architects play a smaller role.

Needless to say, I love the design phase of a development project, but my focus is on achieving great design at an affordable cost. Situations like the one I described above are not uncommon. Still, if someone were to ask me whether the abundance of veins in a block of marble or shortages are a good reason to reject it, I wouldn't hesitate to give my opinion on the matter. I think you can probably guess what my answer would be by now, but I can give you a hint, though.

Designers like to talk about the circular economy and sustainability, hoping that one day the industry will be as sophisticated as a smartphone. I have met many designers who are interested in high-quality architecture, but often complain about the cost of coffee in Sydney. (expand)