Planning

As the saying from Benjamin Franklin goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

In building and construction, design is ”the plan”.

It can be a hand drawn sketch. It can be taking levels by simple equipement.

It does not be expensive or time consuming, but often it is. For larger jobs, councils, certifier and other authorities will require detailed designs. On the other hand, all too often, inexperience leads to over-capitalising in design heedlessly without coordination.

So the initial focus should be to applying the right level of investment in good design and planning.

This includes coordinating the design to value—manage it. Understanding your requirements in order to customise the outcome to your needs and wants. importantly it needs to be coordinated between the multiple disciplines.

Good scheduling needs to consider factors such as the clients expectations, deadlines, and level of detailing required and type of design and construction works considered.

Quality is a given and non-negotiable, but it should not break the bank.

Cost is often the major factor that needs Focus.

Even the most affluent clients are discerning with their money. Applying sound principles of procurement and cost planning techniques will make an amazing difference. These principles are not unique to construction. Good administration will go a long way to great outcomes, especially in construction where there are multiple options and variable factors.

The main driver should be the client. ultimately that’s who we are building for.

But who connects the client to all these factors and understands the clients needs, wants, aspirations, budget to a conceptual design and technical build requirements?

More offer than not, they are all disconnected and not driven to work for the outcome for the client.

They’re all usually separated:

1. Designers don’t build

2. Builders don‘t design

3. architects don‘t always consider engineering, cost or time.

4. engineers don’t always consider aesthetics

5. Authority requirements are not usually flexible

The client gets caught between, ending up paying for shortcomings or oversights of one or the other. This is not a new issue and has been treated by commercial and government developers by combining Design with Construction by using more recent Australian standard form AS4300 Contracts, AS4902 and even the GC21 Major works contracts are now ”Design and Construct” contracts.

Most major construction contracts are “design and construct“ because the client can hold the contractor accountable for both design and construction, so this isn‘t a new concept.

What about residential construction? But for a very good architect, the required coordination is not applied Resulting in building elements misaligning, compromising aesthetics, practicality and rework and abortive costs for the client and failing that, retrospective fixes take time and cause delay to your project.

Whilst it’s not practical to apply this the contract or concept directly to all forms of construction, the principle of connecting design with construction should be at the forefront of all projects, no matter how large or small.

This is our expertise. It will save you time, money and ensure the highest possible quality construction.