December 2010
8 posts
6 tags
IPD as free education
Most people aren’t starring in Good Will Hunting; we learn more by interacting with people than out of books. I learned how to navigate the UL book from an architect named Joe. I learned how to understand specifications from a coworker named Marilynn. That’s one reason why I was so excited when I learned about Integrated Project Delivery. You can think of IPD as a free crash...
9 tags
Better yet, just don't do submittals at all
As a follow-up to my last blog entry about how to do submittals more efficiently, you should know that you don’t really have to do them at all.
For the sub-contractor, the submittal is a chance to put pencil to paper (or mouse to pad) and make sure they understand how they are going to build it. They typically do shop drawings that are more detailed than any single drawing in the...
One firm's embrace of integrated design - new post →
7 tags
Don't increase your work load by 250%
If you have a project right now, you are lucky. Well, actually that first sentence might be a lie. It could very well be the case that you have a project, but the fee is so tiny you have panic attacks every night as you try to calculate how much money you are going to lose on it. To make matters worse, the construction team are probably also barely breaking even, which means even more bogus...
3 tags
New Blog →
I’ve begun writing for a second blog called OpeningDesign. While I’ll continue to focus on the business side of architecture, including IPD, on my blog I AM [not] AN ARCHITECT, I will now also be writing about how to make the design process more open, inclusive, and community-based for this second blog. I hope you enjoy it.
6 tags
Loss of competitive bidding
I’m adding two questions to my Integrated Project Delivery FAQ page. These questions address the issue of going away from competitive bidding. If you are savvy in the construction industry, chances are good that you already understand the downfalls that competitive bidding encourages. So if you have some subtlety or good example to add to these answers, please comment or email me.
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6 tags
Really? It's a surprise every single time?
Here’s why I think our industry is more than ready for Integrated Project Delivery:
I’ve been doing C.A. (construction-phase architectural services) for three long years, now. On the same project. And for three years, we’ve been playing this game.
The contractor sends a submittal. The product doesn’t match the specifications. It goes first to one of my consultants,...
5 tags
Beware of Pseudo-IPD
In this evolution of Integrated Project Delivery, one of the conversations people are having is about whether multi-party contracts are really necessary to get the benefits of an integrated project.
People on one side of this divide point at examples of projects that were executed under CM-at-risk contracts, for instance, that exhibited many of the same behaviors as IPD jobs. They shared the BIM...