Which types of structural framing systems and materials are most commonly used in the US for residences? For office buildings?
What factors determine why these are the most used materials?
Why do different teams of designers and subcontractors link and share their models during the design process?
What are the advantages of linking models?
Are there any disadvantages to linking models?
The advantage of linking models is that we have a centralized and collaborative unique source of information. This standardizes knowledge and makes sure we are “building the same building”.
A disadvantage that I have seen on the practice of this, is that digitalization of the product fosters offsite work. In my opinion co-location is one of the most important things to foster true collaboration and project integration.
I’ve seen GC assign design people to may projects at the same time, this offsite work strategy tend to over-saturates designers, leading to inefficiencies and lack of collaboration and communication between them and the jobsite.
How do you think design coordination was done before we started using digital models?
What advantages does doing this coordination digitally have over previous methods?
I think it was definitely more rigid. People had to commit early and make decisions quickly. Leading many times to not exploring several alternatives and project inefficiencies. We definitely have to leverage BIM to explore multiple alternatives and make quick and informed decisions that benefit the overall quality of the building.
What strategies can design teams use to find and avoid clashes prior to the start of construction?
What can be done besides sharing the models digitally?
Create contracts that incentivize the success of the overall project, rather than optimizing for each subcontractor’s scope of work.
In the current practice we see a lot of siloed contracting. As incentives are given to the optimization of their particular scope. This fosters the traditional mindset of “I did my work, I don’t care what the others are doing”. It doesn’t fosters empathy. In my opinion in most cases is better to have every step of the process working at 80% efficiency, rather than having one step at 95%, the other at 35%, the other at 25%, etc. Standardization, while focusing on aligning project’s incentives, is the key to overall efficiency.
With an aligned incentive structure, probably it will not only reduce the amount of clashes, but it will get them solved quicker.
At what point in the project development process should design coordination start?
Is it ever too early?
I’ve always said that people make money by doing (building phase), but the area of opportunity is in the planning aspect of things (pre-con). We need to keep pushing informed decisions and interdependent activities from the jobsite to the design phase. We have to “mess up” digitally for us to execute smoother in real life.