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The adoption of true design and build

Most people understand the premise of Design and Build procurement – a single organisation undertakes the Design and Build of a project. It could apply to all manner of construction projects, but how many projects are actually delivered with just the employer and the D&B contractor, with no employer’s agent, design team or consultants? Practically zero.

Why? Fundamentally it boils down to two unpopular words in architecture and construction: Risk and Ego.

At this point I will clarify that I am mostly involved with middle value construction projects, where Design and Build procurement can offer substantial advantages but it is often misunderstood and poorly administered.

Let’s go back to the concept of “design” and “build” as two separate areas of expertise, as is assumed with traditional procurement. Design is carried out by an Architect, traditionally a creative, artistic individual or practise who can make a simple scribble on a piece of tracing paper into a work of art. 7 years of training is required to call yourself an Architect and most of this is spent on developing “concepts”; stories of how a scheme came to be designed drawing on all kinds of inspiration from the site, the history, the function of the building, the proposed users. All this creates the “why” narrative of architectural design. You can read it in most architectural commentary, but if you are not an architect, you probably won’t understand.

Most schools of Architecture do not trouble themselves with teaching the roles of other professionals in the construction industry and giving an understanding of their involvement in the design of the building. The “how” is not important, someone else will deal with that.

I come to my first unpopular word, EGO.

“your opinion of yourself, especially your feeling of your own importance and ability” [1]

It is instilled in architecture students, over seven years of education, that they are the most important person in the design of a building. Everyone else will fall into line behind them and make their bits work around the Architect’s grand vision.

Jump into the real world, and suddenly you’re faced with constraints on every aspect of your design – your client for starters! Then there’s structural requirements, Building Regulations, Planning legislation and most of all, cost. You are required to be part of an “integrated team”, to work collaboratively. At some point, you will have to pass your design over to a contractor who, you are sure, will not understand your vision and butcher it in the process of building it.

You’re probably preparing drawings for planning applications that you will not see past stage 3, or small-scale residential work. If you are involved in a project that is actually getting built, you will be behind the project manager, employer’s agent and the contractor in the line to even talk to the client. Weren’t you supposed to be the most important one?

The role of the Architect is changing. It’s not a bad thing.

There is a reason that a lot of young professionals are changing careers or switching their career path after Part 1 or Part 2. Architectural students become BIM managers or development managers; Engineers become project managers. It’s because the young people who are attracted to the big-name careers (Architect and Engineer) have a huge amount to offer when it comes to running projects, that they aren’t getting to do as the engineer or architect. So why can’t an Architect also be a project manager? The role of the Architect was historically the role of the master builder – the individual who had the grand plan and oversaw the whole project. Architects have so much to offer, they are inherently highly skilled, organised, driven individuals with an eye for detail and a creative flair for understanding how the design of a place impacts the user. They often have a huge amount of knowledge and experience; it is such a waste to limit their scope as they currently do and not utilise their skills throughout the construction process. One of the main arguments against D&B is the loss of design quality due to the lack of Architect involvement; could the solution not lie in a design – or Architect – led design and build process. Architects needn’t be so disparaging towards the rise of the project manager in construction – it could be the Architect but, up to this point, they haven’t been interested, I will come on to my next unpopular word shortly.

There’s been call for reform to Architectural education and movement is happening –  the results of the RIBA Education Review[2] aren’t exactly ground breaking but Architecture apprenticeships now exist and I’m excited to see the kind of Architects this creates – however the main route to qualification still involves 5 years of university education teaching the same programme of “concepts” and “someone else will make it stand up” – the establishment is reluctant to accept that the role of the Architect is changing in the real world and education needs to keep up. We could spend less time on concepts and more on coordination as a start, but what I’d really like to see is a massive shake up of architectural education and the damaging and limiting preconceptions being instilled in students.

It is what we expect from most other walks of life – we don’t ask someone to design a car who doesn’t know how to build one. A furniture maker doesn’t just design a table and leave it down to someone else to make it.

Architects could be great project managers. They are already perfectly placed with input throughout the whole design and construction process, but we have limited what that input is by saying “other people will do that” or “other people are responsible for that”. Which brings me to my next unpopular word, RISK.

“expose (someone or something valued) to danger, harm, or loss”[3]

The construction industry is so bad at working collaboratively because there is such an ingrained culture of blame. Every company is focused on reducing their liability and their potential exposure to risk. While this is not a bad business strategy, it is not in the client’s or the project’s interests for every party to be solely interested in their own risk aversion.

This culture has resulted in compartmentation of design and construction teams and a linear design process. Even though everyone says they are working collaboratively, it is impossible to break out of our own little box for fear of exposing ourselves to potential harm or loss, or because we don’t trust the people we are working with.

The architect designs a square.

The engineer designs the square structure.

The M&E consultant fills the square with equipment.

The contractor prices the square structure filled with M&E equipment.

Has anyone questioned whether a square was the right shape? What if a rectangle was actually more cost effective and the contractor could tell you that, but he is too far down the linear process to have any input because it’s already cost £40k in consultant’s fees, the architect doesn’t like to be questioned on design decisions (ego) and it’s too risky to change it now. It’s a linear process which does not allow for true collaboration.

There are many different ways Design and Build is implemented in the construction industry, with a sliding scale of design development before a contractor is engaged. This all comes from the requirement for there to be something for the contractor to price. Clients are concerned that they want to get the design right and make sure the specification is correct before it is sent to 3 or more contractors to tender. They are scared of letting a contractor have control over design because (sorry contractors) they’re not qualified designers. But is that not traditional procurement? A design team designs it and a contractor builds it.

What if the contractor designed it? What if the contractor was an Architect? What if the Architect was a contractor? But, risk! But, liability! But, conflicts of interest! During my training, a well-meaning tutor asked how I could be both the Architect and the contractor, what about the conflict of interest? I really struggled to answer – we were working on a design and build project with only one interest, one shared outcome; to deliver the building the client wanted on time and on budget. Is that not what every construction project is about? Yes, there can be multiple designers and contractors working on one project, all with their own business strategies, insurance, risk management, but those are commercial factors which concern the individual companies, we all have one shared interest – the client and the project. Conflict of interest is a nonissue.

Design and Build contracts have gained popularity because initially they were responding to client pressures to work more collaboratively, so design teams could show they were trying to work collaboratively by using these contracts. They are also popular with design teams because they are great for dumping risk on the contractor. Unlike traditional procurement where the pre-contract design team is still responsible for the design, D&B contracts assume that the contractor will take responsibility for the (supposedly incomplete) design to develop it for construction. Pre-contract design teams still get paid for their work but suddenly they have passed all their design risk onto the contractor.

To work collaboratively we need the whole team on board. I don’t have all the answers of how this could work with competitive tender because, yes, I agree that a competitive market can help achieve lowest costs. But lowest costs are not always best value – we need to go back to the design stage to address that. It takes a lot of trust to jump straight into a complete D&B project with the everyone on board, under one company with one point of liability and risk. It’s huge – the client only has one option, and the D&B contractor has all the liability. How do you manage your liability when you are the only one? You can’t limit your scope of works or be careful to exclude items which someone else can take responsibility for. What you can do is manage. Manage your supply chain, manage your consultants and sub-consultants, manage the construction process. Above all, manage your people to get focussed on the shared outcome and make sure everyone is working to their strengths. Foster trust, openness and respect in your team. When people know that no one else is taking any blame, they take ownership of everything. And it works because as a contractor, I don’t want to take on someone else’s design, I want to design it myself and know that it works, and if it doesn’t I only have myself to blame. We communicate openly because we’re all on the same side and we trust each other, knowing we are not putting ourselves at risk by speaking up. Everyone needs to know clearly what they are doing, and the standards expected of them, and the client needs to know what they are getting.

I think we have forgotten the difference between employer’s requirements (ER’s) and specification – an ER might be “a hard wearing, slip resistant vinyl floor” and the specification (or Contractor’s Proposal) could be “Gerflor Tarasafe Ultra H20”. ER’s should not be specifications; they should be the requirements of the client and it should be open for the contractor to meet those requirements with the specification he chooses. Granted, some clients will know that they want an iPhone or an Android, in which case this is the requirement, but most clients only know what they need (a phone with a good camera and decent memory) – the architect or surveyor turns it into a specification.

So again, we are back to not trusting the contractor to specify because they will only go for the cheapest option. So maybe we should be a little more specific; “slip resistant vinyl floor – min 2mm thick, slip resistant rating of R11”. Now the contractor must choose a product of a minimum standard, but it is down to him to find the most economical product which meets the requirement. This massively increases of the range of quotes returned, because the contractors are not only being compared on profit margins, but on their ability to source and specify products and materials which meet a minimum standard. They might not have big brand names on them, but they will fulfil the employer’s requirements.

Surely, the role of the Architect pre-tender has just shrunk dramatically? Yes, because in true Design and Build there isn’t a tender and the design and specification is carried out by the Contractor. What if the contractor was an Architect? What if the Architect was a Contractor? Design, as thoroughly and intricately understood by Architects, is the heart of every construction project and Architects could be the heart of the construction process, if they opened themselves up to the whole process.

Contractors are much more open to collaborative working and it is quite common to find large contractors with in-house design departments. Architects need to get on board with construction, not just design.

It takes as long to qualify as an Architect as it does a doctor. And yet Architects are still oblivious to the constraints of reality on their designs. An undergraduate degree in “concept” is surely plenty, with the remainder of training spent on understanding the huge complexities of the construction industry and how they can influence and shape the design process. It is frustrating to see some universities doing things so well, but this knowledge and best practice is not shared because of the competition between universities for students. My undergraduate degree from the University of Bath is actually a BSc, with the first year spent working with the Civil Engineering students. The course was also split with two 6-month placements in the second and third years, to enable the integration of skills learnt in practice into the design education. This is unique in architectural education.

It’s a big ask of the construction industry, to use D&B how it was originally intended. It requires clients to trust contractors and allow them opportunities to add value. Architectural education needs a big shakeup. Architects need to rethink their position in the construction industry. Most of all, we need to remember our shared purpose and break out of our silos, learning to trust and value each other to truly work collaboratively.

 

Katy Barker is an Architect and the owner of Directline Structures Ltd, an Architect-led Design and Build Contractor founded by her father, a chartered civil engineer. She gained her Part 1 at the University of Bath, her Part 2 at Kingston University, and her Part 3 through the RIBA North West Advanced Diploma in Professional Practice.

 

[1] Definition of “ego” from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press

[2] https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/resources-landing-page/riba-education-review

[3] Definition of “risk” from the Oxford English Dictionary Oxford University Press