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When working on construction projects with complex building geometries or high performance materials, some architects are working with mechanical engineering and contracting teams to establish building envelope systems. Design-assist (DA) projects are on the rise in health care and other sectors.
It might seem unusual for an architect to retain a building envelope contractor and other building experts as early as the schematic design stage of a project, but increasingly, on sophisticated building contracts with tight timelines, the idea is catching on.
It is for good reason, because the additional design input can reduce the time and costs to design and build a project.
“Instead of architects spending a year or two drawing something to the nth degree, they can rely on experts to get it done quicker,” explains John Spadaro, director of engineering with Flynn Canada Ltd., a building envelope manufacturer and installer.
Early input is assembled under what is known in the industry as the design assist (DA) contract. Such contracts are gaining popularity in the world of fast-track projects, or jobs where owners are “looking to carefully manage risk,” Spadaro says.
Examples where DA contracts are well suited include buildings with complex geometries and high-performance materials, points out Michal Chlumecky. “Those things can have dramatic costs implications for the owner, depending on how they are approached.”
Chlumecky is vice-president of operations with Contract Glaziers Inc. (CGI), another company in the business of making and installing building envelope systems. He says that architects often design details without necessarily knowing how complicated it can be to install them. That’s where DA proves effective.
In a DA role, companies like CGI and Flynn might advise an architect on systems for wind loading, maintenance and cleaning, building tolerances/movements, building code and water/air infiltration.
“We look at constructability issues, means and methods and attachment issues,” explains Chlumecky. “We try and steer the drawings in a direction that allows those types of issues to be dealt with and detailed very efficiently from a labour perspective.”
CGI will work with mechanical engineering and contracting teams to establish a building envelope performance that yields efficiencies and economies of scale. It might include additional curtainwall elements for energy performance that increase the curtainwall cost but allow for less expensive mechanical equipment.
Chlumecky says building envelope contractors can also help architects design details for the most efficient installation.
Some owners shy away from DA models because they want to keep accountability in the architect’s hands. But architects are not experts on means and methods for building envelope systems.
As an example Chlumecky points to a DA contract where CGI made “a lot of value engineering suggestions” on hospital’s curtainwall design that yielded a 10-15 percent savings on the costs of the building envelope without compromising the architect’s design intent. “The architect had unknowingly been designing details that were actually adding costs to the job.”
Practically unheard of half a decade ago, design assist contracts are increasingly common in the building industry — particularly on fast-track projects in the health care sector, a specialty of CGI. Over 50 percent of all of the company’s health care contracts today are design assist, says Chlumecky.
But DA is also moving into other building sectors. Recently, CGI was awarded a high-performance dual skin curtainwall based on a design assist business model for expansion at the Calgary International Airport. Flynn Canada recently completed a pre-glazed high performance custom unitized curtainwall at Epcor Tower, a 29-storey office tower in downtown Edmonton. The triple-glazed unit configuration consists of three pieces of 6 mm glass separated by two 12.7 mm argon-filled cavities and Low E coatings on two surfaces.
“From our perspective, I think the design assist process there went very well,” explains Spadaro.
DA is partly driven by the increasing emphasis on designing sophisticated building envelopes to meet energy performance criteria. But to be successful, such contracts require all parties to understand the architect’s performance objectives and budget. “If we offer any value engineering, we have to know what is sacred about the architect’s design intent because we can’t go there,” says Chlumecky.
But Spadaro points out that invariably there are design tradeoffs when experts are brought on board at design development stage.
While there aren’t many drawbacks to design assist, it is most successful when it is a collaborative effort, he adds. Inexperienced parties or parties taking an adversarial approach can cause breakdowns.
Another negative for companies retained in a design assist capacity is that it draws their resources much earlier into the development process of a project than tendered contracts do.
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