Who Made the Team?
Who Made the Team?
Before you start anything at all you decide you want to construct a new building or refurbish/ extend an existing building. From that point you usually commence in one of two ways :
- As client, you discuss the proposed construction work with a couple of designers to see who gels and who you could come to trust. One designer is appointed as team leader (contract administrator), layout and elevations are proposed, approved and fixed.
- You are aware of a builder who can do the type of job you know you want and they arrange a special design for you or they offer a standard building from their catalogue. Layouts and elevations are proposed, approved and fixed.
Some clients initially prefer to appoint a Project Manager but this is relatively rare.
For both 1 & 2 before submission to the planning authorities, you may need input from other consultants, perhaps not. After permission to commence work is granted, you appoint other specialist consultants who overlay their designs to the fixed and approved scheme.
What will probably occur.
You will for example, engage a consultant structural engineer who will have opinions on an appropriate structure for the house. They will have considered previous land uses, adjacent trees, plants and site conditions, tested the soil type and considered the dead and live loads you are imposing. They will have looked at the layout and thought through issues leading them to conclude on a recommended foundation.
The team will continue this process for each structural element of the walls, floors and roof and manufactured components such as windows, doors, and services such as heating & cooling etc. The team will complete the design to meet current regulations and this is a lot to take in and question.
If you have concerns and wish to bring them forward for inclusion in the design process, then you are leaving it too late if you only know what is planned on completion by reading their drawings.
For you to have an input you will need to have engaged with all the team members earlier and kept up with the design deliberations. This does not normally occur as clients do not usually have this much detailed input. Its more that you employ specialists and they bring their specifications forward in isolation.
The danger in this approach is that consultants only design within their specialism. They add to what went before. They do not offer innovation as they have pre-set guidelines to work within.
Fitzpatrick Team look at things differently. We propose that the members of the consultant’s team should not work separately and just bring their expertise individually to bear on the pre-fixed proposal. They should from the beginning feel that they are in a partnership to produce the best overall solution that they can. By the specialist consultant’s early involvement, they influence choices available and selections made.
Not only does their input include valuable insights and joined up technologies it also allows items that seem obvious and costly to be omitted or made redundant. The selection of one technology negates or reduces the size of another. This can produce an energy saving design and reduce costs.
The concept of how the team will operate is an excellent starting point in the earliest conversations. Discussion should include your vision for your business, and your take on sustainable design.
By raising these points early in preliminary meetings, you are setting the scene for a collaborative or ‘integrative’ approach.
Fitzpatrick Team are very focussed on leading the right team to deliver what you want not what complies with a distant and out of touch regulation. Give Mark a call to discuss your project.
