DBIA's 10 BP's in 10 Post (#2)

NREL's First DB Project

If you missed my discussion on DBIA Best Practice #1 and the introduction of this series, now is the time to review.

Moving on to BP#2

An owner should implement a procurement plan that enhances collaboration and other benefits of design-build and is in harmony with the reasons that the owner chose the design-build delivery system.

Right off the bat, this practice charges the owner with fostering a procurement plan that enhances “collaboration”: a prominent opportunity and result of Design-Build Done Right. However, the beneficial affects of collaboration do not move from opportunity to result without a determined effort on the part of the owner.

To pause here, and go deeper into collaboration, consider that this requires the owner, designer and builder to make commitments, and keep them. The owner is, and must be, the guardian of the collaborative effort: because the project owner is uniquely positioned as the default “governor” of the project acquisition. If anybody doubts this, try to move any project forward without consent (or at least capitulation) of the governor.

Net-Zero Difference Between Winning & Losing

If you are interested in “green” buildings (irrespective of how you define that), and want to change your project’s outcome to achieve your definition of “green”, then you may find this post interesting.

If you are interested in “ugly” buildings (however you may define that), and want to create the world’s most “ugly” building, then you too may find this post interesting.

In other words: if you are interested in (fill in the blank) buildings, and want to create the most (fill in the blank) building in history, then you should definitely find this post interesting.

DBIA's 10 BPs in 10 Posts (#1)

Practice Makes Perfect

Now that the design and construction 'world' is taking in Design-Build Institute of America's (DBIA) 10 Best Practices for Design-Build, I want to take time and convince all that this "living" document of practices is, indeed, a sort of magic. I say 'magic', because to follow these practices is to transform an otherwise adequate outcome into a High Performance Outcome…and that is what I'm here to advance.

I'm not going to recite the 10 BP's: you can read them for yourselves. What I want to do in this blog-series is share my experience with each: gained over the past 15 years, on how I've applied them (before & after
their systemization) and either succeeded or failed with each. In this way I intend to give you, the reader, a practical perspective of each, and how they have accomplished their goal implicit in the document's introduction:

Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death?

Patrick Henry, 1736-1799

It's seems somewhat just that the defender of liberty spoke his famous words before citizens considering a new convention for government. To borrow from Patrick Henry's inspiration, consider these questions in the context of "conventional" project delivery strategies:

What if you could name the bid-price for your next project? What if you could be certain that the price you name satisfies all of your project needs? What if the project you purchased, at the price you named, exceeded all of your expectations? What if all this could be done within a marketplace ready to respond?

What if you could do the same when it comes to project delivery and the acquisition of your next project?  This is exactly what the City of Liberty Missouri is doing for their new $65 million wastewater treatment facility and collection/conveyance system improvements. That's right, Liberty!

What's Holding Back "High Performance Green Buildings"?

3 Common Roadblocks to Achieving Project Performance

1- The Project Delivery Model: This is not to say that all three primary Delivery Models can't achieve a "High Performance" result. It's that the risk/cost associated with various Project Delivery Models creates a barrier to High Performance by jeopardizing the project's budget.

The proof of this is evident in the inventory of High Performance Green Buildings built over the past several years. They are the exception, not the rule. All things being equal, no owner would avoid the creation of a facility that reduces their energy costs by up to 50%, unless their budget "forbids" it.