by Steve Freeman
Contributing Editor

Summary: Two team members of the 21st Century Workplace project say that when a job is suited for integrated project delivery (IPD), the rewards far outweigh risks. “Many people are skeptical of this change,” said Marnique Heath, AIA, LEED-AP, of Studios Architecture, Washington, D.C. “The industry needs to see many more examples of projects successfully completed under the IPD method.” Heath is Studios’ project manager for the renovation of the AIA headquarters, dubbed the “21st Century Workplace” project. The project team is committed to the IPD approach.

Although it’s too early to forecast risks and rewards for the AIA project, Heath and colleague Chris Gorthy, LEED-AP, of DPR Construction, shared some highlights of other IPD projects with an attentive audience on July 9 at DesignDC, the annual conference of AIA DC, AIA Potomac Valley, and AIA Northern Virginia.

Ideal for IPD
Various factors in a project make an IPD approach the best choice, according to Heath and Gorthy. Although the size or cost of any project does not preclude successfully using BIM software or collaborative delivery models, the owner or owner’s consultant also must be comfortable with making solid decisions early in the planning process.

Most of the preconditions, however, deal with what the practitioners bring to the table. Ideally, the firms asked to employ an integrated approach should have organizational cultures of collaboration and should be “flat” in hierarchy and excel at mainstreaming operations. Practitioners themselves should be good at professional relationships and must trust and respect colleagues.

Navigating risks and rewards
Heath and Gorthy agree IPD is superior to more traditional project delivery approaches, such as design-build, bridging, and construction management at risk. By resolving design decisions early, IPD has the potential to reduce construction costs and save money, and that can translate into more revenue for team members. For example, Grothy said, all the team members shared $5 million in savings after successfully completing the $96 million Camino Medical Group Medical Office in Mountain View, Calif, using a variaition on cost-sharing and management. DPR served as GC for the state-of-the-art health facility.

Potential IPD risks: Sharing confidential information and fee structures with practitioners from other disciplines, unprecedented sharing of costs of errors, and facing much more work in pre-construction.

IPD also helped Studios meet various challenges in the Kingman Island Environmental Education Center project in Washington, D.C. The 18,000-square-foot center—the only building on an existing wildlife park—had aggressive goals for sustainability, aiming for a LEED® Platinum rating. By creating the team early, using BIM software, and calling on all to participate together, the team produced schematic design documents that were much more detailed than would typically be expected at this phase of design. The project is currently in the criteria design phase.

“Our success has only been possible because of the high level of collaboration among team members—all brought on early,“ Heath said. “It’s hard to get that kind of collaboration in a design-bid-build process.”

Potential IPD rewards: Eliminating liability risks, achieving greater efficiency, meeting new “green” goals, and sharing in savings when the project comes in under budget.

Design-build is a good way to do business, but IPD is superior, according to Gorthy. “In the design-build world, the designer or contractor usually leads the charge, but with IPD the whole team makes the decisions together,” he said. “And from the standpoint of bringing subcontractors on that much earlier, it’s not just dumping documents on the table and saying, ‘I need a price in the next few weeks.’”

Integrated practice ideally removes the risks involved with inaccurate information, and therefore errors in pricing, because team members review data and make decisions in unison.

How to proceed
To encourage others to make IPD a regular consideration for their practice, Heath and Gorthy offered these guidelines:

• Encourage the owner to issue an RFQ
• Encourage efficient decision making by the owner and/or the owner’s consultants
• Identify the primary team members (usually the triad of owner, architect, and general contractor), setting a “majority rules” standard
• Depending on the form of agreement, establish a GMP (guaranteed maximum price) or target cost
• Choose either transitional or “single purpose entity” (SPE) AIA agreements
• Agree on how to share risks and rewards
• Negotiate who owns, stamps, and seals the documents
• Form teams early (prior to criteria design phase) to “inform” the process better
• Commission an energy modeling analysis
• Exploit building information modeling (BIM) technology
• Adopt a tone of openness to sharing fee schedules, etc.
• Expect larger than normal pre-construction costs if the contractor is to be compensated for pre-construction effort
• Build in time and money contingencies
• Plan on an aggressive schedule
• Always come to the table with a few flexible ideas.

IPD and the AIA’s 21st Century Workplace
Heath and Gorthy are part of a cross-discipline team working on the 35-year-old AIA headquarters in Washington, D.C. The building needs major remodeling, due to aging mechanical systems, high energy use, and outdated space efficiencies. The target for the eight-story office building is a 60-percent reduction in energy use and carbon emissions by 2012 and carbon neutrality by 2030—in step with the AIA’s goals for all members’ projects. The AIA leadership ratcheted up that proposition to be a learning opportunity for its members by setting aggressive goals in sustainability and integrated design and construction.

First came an RFQ, stipulating the details and expertise required. Then an IPD arrangement was forged. The “primary participants” in that arrangement—the owner, architect, and contractor—currently are negotiating the contract agreements. “With IPD, you have design firms trusting contractors and contractors trusting design firms and we’ve had hundreds of years of that not being the case,” Gorthy said.

The 21st Century team is in the criteria design phase now. Heath also said the team has been “extremely thorough” in their investigation of the building, even to the point of removing precast panels to see the conditions and configurations hidden behind them. Most recently, the team received its first set of MEP sketches and diagrams, which also is possible because of the early team formation. To ensure an ability to collaborate, the team required the MEP firm (Syska Hennessy Group) to attend the initial design charrette and interact with AIA and DPR leaders.

Although the choice of BIM software was easily decided (all team members were already using it), the team is now evaluating the use of CMIC project management software to exchange information, documents, and drawings. “BIM is an enabler to collaboration and IPD,” said Gorthy. “BIM helps push the design process, helps with [sustainability] submissions, improves quality and production in the field, and helps with operations and maintenance.”

Construction is set to start in late spring or summer 2009.