Effective Blending of Design-Build and Sustainability

By Katie Newman

Newman writes that the greatest cause of failure in the green building process is miscommunication between the architect and the contractor.

Katie Newman is an architect with The Beck Group in Dallas.

In the past decade, two major innovations have arisen as the focal points of progress for the architecture and construction industry. The first, design-build construction, involves the collaborative joining of the architect and the contractor into a partnership. The second, green building, or sustainability, involves designing and building in a more environmentally and energy-friendly way.

These methods separately present challenges to the designer and builder alike. But they can be mutually beneficial approaches when used together. In the process of building, there is a sliding scale of the overall ability of the architect to affect the design, and the cost required to make changes. After bidding, it is difficult and costly to change the design. In green building, the same sliding scale can be applied. It is almost impossible to introduce the idea of LEED certification anytime during the process except in the early stages.

In order to understand design-build, it is important to understand what does and does not work in design-bid-build and construction manager-at-risk. In design-bid-build, since the winning contractor is responsible for everything in the drawings and specifications at the time of the bid, any misunderstandings or conflicts that are not questioned in the bidding process also become the responsibility of the contractor, at their expense. In construction manager-at-risk, a construction manager is contracted during the design phase in order to keep cost down, and when the pricing is complete, they are at risk for that number. While this is closer to design-build, there is still no partnership in place between the construction manager and the architect, so they have no obligations to each other, either contractually or financially.

In the design-build method, the architect and contractor contract as a single entity to the owner. This is generally more favorable as they begin to perform as a team from the onset of the project. With the added expertise of the contractor available during design, many issues related to the constructability, material choice and cost of the building can be addressed and corrected before they become a cost increase. Overall, it is a more efficient and valuable way of building.

Green building greatly benefits from this kind of collaboration. For the purposes of this discussion, we will refer to green building as the use of the U.S. Green Building Council's standard of measure for sustainability, known as LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The greatest cause of failure in the green building process, especially one that is attempting a LEED certification, is miscommunication between the architect and the contractor. In design-bid-build, the architect must be specific in the drawings and specifications, otherwise crucial credits will be lost and the end goal of certification will not be reached. Likewise, if a contractor is not an equal partner in the certification goal and chooses to ignore the specifics called out by the architect, the same result can occur. In addition, it must be clearly defined in the owner-architect and owner-contractor agreements that there is to be certification reached and that there will be penalties incurred if it is not. The method of building green buildings relies heavily on the communication of the drawings and specifications, as misunderstanding the pricing of a green building can be costly.

Adding the expertise of the contractor to the design process as a partner improves the chances that there will be mutual understanding of the project goals. Costs can be kept down, as the pricing is done at the same time as the design with the understanding of the systems in place. It is important to note that the design-build team consists of the architect and the contractor, not the subcontractors. Although there is a contract in place, it is still extremely important that project goals, especially goals as specific as LEED certification requirements, are communicated clearly in the drawings and specifications, and are closely monitored by the architect and the contractor during the process. It also helps to have subcontractors that are experienced in sustainable design and construction.

There is much work involved in moving past long-ingrained ideas about how architects and contractors operate, and retraining all parties to work and think in a different way. For those that are willing to put forth the effort, the benefits are proven. The end product is a better designed, better built building that is more cost effective than could have been conceived in the standard process.