PJM

Question 1

Zones of occupancy

Answer 1

Determines occupant density, usually for HVAC and ventilation reasons… how close, on average, is the nearest person?

Public (25’ radius) for each person
Social (12’ radius)
Personal (4’ radius)
Intimate (1.5’ radius)

A college-town bar will require more ventilation than a bank.

Question 2

the owner-architect contract stipulates that the architect’s fee will be 7% of construction costs, ill the architect be paid for that 7% portion of the contractor’s overhead costs?

Answer 2

Yes, a percentage of the contractor’s overhead is included in the architect’s fee. The Owner’s budget of the Cost of the Work includes general construction costs, and profit, and overhead.

Question 3

Business entity concept

Answer 3

The business is a separate entity and financial transactions of the business, therefore, should be kept separate from personal financial record keeping. Don’t pay for your dry cleaning with your firm’s credit card, even if you own 100% of the firm and the suit needs to be cleaned for a client meeting.

Question 4

What are accessory occupancies?

Answer 4

Small spaces (the total area of which is less than 10% of the floor area of the story they are serving) that serve the main occupancy and require classification as different occupancy groups (ex. a small office (B) in the corner of a factory (F-1)) but do not require fire separation from the main occupancy.

Question 5

If the Owner suspends the project, the Architect can…

Answer 5

Suspend work
Require payment for work-to-date
Require payment of delay-caused expenses
Submit a new schedule

Question 6

AIA E204 2017

Answer 6

Supplementary to core 101 contracts, for projects with Sustainability goals.
The Owner must provide drawings, manuals, and building operational costs, appeal for certifications, ensure design fits sustainable guidelines, and comply with authorities on ownership and operations.

Question 7

Architect’s responsibilities to prepare for bidding

Answer 7

Finish CDs
Administrate bidding
Update cost estimates

Question 8

Task dependency

Answer 8

The relationship of stop and start times for tasks

Start-start: align the start times of the steel folks who cut the rebar and the welders Finish-start (also called a natural dependency): align the finish time of the rebar welders with the start time of the concrete trucks
Finish-finish: align the finish times of the folks who remove the formwork from the concrete foundation and the rented pumps that keep the foundation excavation pit dry during construction.

Question 9

Prime contract

Answer 9

Prime contracts: Main contract with the owner for the work with the expectation that some of the work will be completed with the use of subcontracts. The contractor has a prime contract with the owner, and he hires a plumbing subcontractor, a concrete subcontractor, a roofing subcontractor etc. using subcontracts.

Question 10

Articles of B101, Owner-Architect Agreement

1. Initial Information
2. Architect’s Responsibilities
3. Scope of Architect’s Basic Services
4. Additional Services
5. Owner’s Responsibilities
6. Cost of the Work
7. Copyright and Licenses
8. Claims and Disputes
9. Termination/Suspension
10. Miscellaneous Provisions
11. Compensation
12. Special Terms and Conditions
13. Scope of Agreement

Answer 10

1. Initial Information; i.e. identifies project, budget, schedule
2. Architect’s Responsibilities; architect obtains insurance and provides services consistent with the professional skill and care ordinarily provided by architects practicing in the same or similar locality under the same or similar circumstances (Standard of Care)
3. Scope of Architect’s Basic Services; architect submits a schedule, architect must meet code, architect facilitates bidding, architect certifies payment to the contractor, architect reviews contractor’s submittals (shop drawings, product samples), “Architect shall consider sustainable design alternatives” (if you think that “shall consider” sounds like it is a contractual obligation without teeth to enforce it… I agreel)
4. Additional Services; almost everything beyond a single drawing set with MEP and structural engineer is an additional service
5. Owner’s Responsibilities; geotech engineer, everything site- and permit-related, if an owner hires her own consultants, it’s on her to coordinate them
6. Cost of the Work; includes construction cost, but not architects fees, cost of the land, or contingencies for change orders
7. Copyright and Licenses; architect and architect’s consultants own the drawings
8. Claims and Disputes; contract gives architect and owner a choice, before work commences.
   •. Mediation then arbitration OR mediation then litigation in court
9. Termination/Suspension; if the owner doesn’t pay the architect or suspends the project for
   90 days, the architect can terminate, if the owner just feels like it, she can terminate but has to pay the architect for expenses (for instance, costs associated with terminating the MEP engineer). The contract automatically terminates one year after substantial completion.
10. Miscellaneous Provisions; architect’s consultants can’t directly file a claim against the owner and the owner’s consultants can’t directly file a claim against the architect
11. Compensation; owner pays architect stipulated sum (fixed amount, payable after each milestone: SD, DD, CD, Bidding, CA) or pays a percentage of the BUDGET for the Cost of Work
12. Special Terms and Conditions; add your own, project-specific terms here. Maybe you want to shoot a documentary about your design process and want the owner’s agreement to be featured in the film.
13. Scope of Agreement; this contract supersedes all prior negotiations and can only be amended in writing with both signatures

Question 11

How does the owner pay the contractor? Explain each of these

Unit Cost
Cost plus Fixed Fee
Guaranteed maximum price (GMP)
Stipulated (lump) sum

Answer 11

Unit Cost: Owner agrees to pay $245,000 per housing unit
Cost plus Fixed Fee: $1.6M estimate for the cost of the project (but owner pays more if budget is exceeded) plus $300,000 in fixed profit for the contractor. No limit on change orders, which can net the contractor additional profit.
Guaranteed maximum price (GMP): like a cost plus fixed fee contract, but if the project is delayed or the price of materials goes up beyond a total project cost of $2M, the contractor has to complete the project and eat the extra cost.
Stipulated (lump) sum: Owner pays contractor $1.9M to build everything in the contract, period.

Question 12

Supplemental instructions to bidders vs Architect’s supplemental instructions

Answer 12

Supplemental instructions to bidders: Modifications to general conditions in contracts. Example: a project goes out to bid and one contractor notices that there is no space set aside for the fourth floor electrical equipment. Architect says, “good catch,” and redraws the plan to include an electrical closet. That’s called an addendum (plural: addenda), which is then sent to all the bidders so that they can all bid on the same project, and so all the bid dollar amounts can be easily compared by the owner; they each have the electrical closet cost factored in.
Architect’s supplemental instructions: after construction is underway, like a change order, but so minor it won’t affect the cost or project schedule. Example: changing the paint color before the paint has been purchased.

Question 13

“Top-down” vs “Bottom-up” project budgeting

Answer 13

Top-down
Start at the “top” with the gross fee the owner will pay your firm Subtract expenses to see what is left for design time

Bottom-up
Start at the bottom with each person who will be working on the project, their hourly rate, and the number of hours you estimate they’ll need to work. Each task is tallied upwards Time consuming, but more accurate Good for multi-faceted, large projects
Project cost = Sum (Hours/Task * Dollars/Hour)

Question 14

Smoke pencil

Answer 14

Smoke pencil: for tracing the source of building skin air leaks. See here for an example.

Smoke pencil: for tracing the source of building skin air leaks. See here for an example.
We use a blower door test to pressurize and depressurize the building to measure total building air leakage. While we have the building pressurized for the blower door test, we can run a smoke pencil (also called a smoke pen) as a wand and watch the smoke move into or out from seams in the building skin, at door and window frames, and at penetrations for utilities.

Question 15

If the Contractor requires information from the Owner, the Architect has __ days to give that information to the Contractor.

Answer 15

7

Question 16

An architect is designing a horse barn, and during construction, the owner provides many of the building materials needed for construction from his personal stash. If the owner-architect contract stipulates that the architect’s fee will be 7% of construction costs, will the architect be paid for that 7% of the actual construction cost or 7% of what the construction cost would have been had the material not been provided free by the owner?

Answer 16

The Owner’s budget for the Cost of the Work, which is what that 7% fee is based on, includes the reasonable value of labor, materials and equipment provided by the owmer. If the owner provides his own materials or labor, the architect gets paid her portion of that too, provided the fee is based on a percentage of construction costs.

Question 17

Summarize AIA B101, the owner-architect agreement

Answer 17

Typical Design-Bid-Build Owner-Architect Contract
The Architect must:

Maintain schedule and budget
Manage utilities, codes, governmental agencies Consider environmentally sustainable options
Provide the instruments of service at the standard of care Cost estimate at every phase and redesign if over budget

Question 18

Contemporaneous documentation

Answer 18

Contemporaneous documentation: Recording of non-regular communications, decisions, and actions throughout a project, in real time. Stick to the facts and avoid conjecture or supposition.
For example: the project architect keeps a journal (good) and it becomes known throughout the firm as the place for anyone on the project team to document conversations, meeting observations, sketches, business cards, and write casual notes (also good). It is not a good place to write, “I’m not sure what the occupancy group should be on this building. We decided at today’s meeting that we wouldn’t label the chemistry lab and see if the code official would catch the omission.” You shouldn’t do that anyway, even if you don’t write about it, but if you only wrote, “I’m not sure what the occupancy group should be on this building,” instead of, “To do: identify occupancy group.” you might be setting your firm up for a legal suit if the building burns and someone dies.

Question 19

AIA C401 Architect-consultant agreement

Answer 19

AIA C401 Architect-consultant agreement:
The Consultant is not responsible for other Consultant’s works, but still has the same duty to say something when errors appear. The Consultant only reports to the Architect, then the Architect reports to the owner and contractor.

Question 20

These documents are included in “contract documents”
Addendum: A change made to the drawings after the project goes out for contractors to bid, but before the bids are due.
Change order: a change, after the bid is accepted, negotiated among the contractor, owner, and architect that impacts the cost or schedule. It is agreed upon in writing by all three parties.
ASI (architect’s supplemental information): a clarification or interpretation of the drawings or specs that does not change the cost or schedule.
Construction change directive: architect-issued directive to modify the work now while the contractor and owner continue to negotiate who will pay for the change. Used so that disagreements don’t delay the project.

Answer 20

These documents are not included in “contract documents”

RFIs are not included in the contract documents (though the results of an RFI could lead to an addendum, architect’s supplemental information (ASI), construction change directive, or change order, which would then be included in the contract documents)

Question 21

Consequential damages

Answer 21

Consequential damages: arise not from a botched job that has to be fixed for a given cost (those are direct damages), but rather from the indirect effects of the botched job, including lost owner rents, lost owner’s customers, lost owner’s productivity, loss from owner’s bank loan penalties, and most costly of all, lost owner’s profits. Consequential damage awards can become disproportionately high, so the AlA contracts include provisions where all sides agree to waive any right to sue one another for consequential damages.

Question 22

C Corporation

Answer 22

C Corporation: Large company with public stocks - double taxed. Not really for architecture firms, except the largest ones. For instance, AECOM is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and almost all publicly traded companies are C-Corps.

Question 23

Descriptive Specification
Prescriptive Specification

Answer 23

Descriptive Specification: Detailed written information on requirements for material and product quality, including installation
Prescriptive Specification: Detailed means and methods of construction

Question 24

Joint venture

Answer 24

When two companies make a temporary third company to win a commission and build a project, with profits and risks shared between the two parent companies.

Question 25

PERT critical path diagrams

Answer 25

Project management tool that uses a network diagram format to represent project tasks and their dependencies. Tasks are represented as nodes, and arrows indicate the sequence and dependencies between tasks. PERT charts primarily focus on depicting the flow of tasks in a project and identifying critical paths-the sequence of tasks that, if delayed, would delay the entire project. Developed by the contractor (as is all construction scheduling). See below for an example.

Question 26

An architect is designing a place of worship, and during construction, members of the community band together as volunteers to assist with the building process. If the owner-architect contract stipulates that the architect’s fee will be 7% of construction costs, will the architect be paid for that 7% of the actual construction cost or 7% of what the construction cost would have been had the labor not been donated?

Answer 26

The Owner’s budget for the Cost of the Work, which is what that 7% fee is based on, includes the reasonable value of donated labor, materials and equipment. The owner has to pay the architect for 7% of the value of the donated labor too.

Question 27

In the AlA contracts, what is “The Work” and is “The Project?”

Answer 27

The Work vs The Project: it’s a subtle difference. The Work includes all the construction required to meet the obligations of these particular contract documents. The Project may also include efforts and buildings constructed by other contractors or the owner. For instance, as a developer, I have a background in construction and own land. On that land I’m going to build a restaurant myself, but need the expertise of a specialized contractor to build the attached movie theater at the same time. I hire an architect who creates construction documents for the theater-only portion. That part of the building goes out to bid and you win the construction contract to build the theater portion of the building. The Work includes only the theater. The Project includes both the theater and the restaurant.

Obviously, in most cases, The Work and The Project are the same, but when there are, for instance, multiple prime contracts for different areas of the building(s), we need a way to differentiate The Work associated with one contract, relative to The Project associated with all the contracts combined. To see for yourself the legal definition, see the A201 and scroll down to sections 1.1.3 and 1.1.4. A warning that this legalize definition will probably not make the difference between the two terms clearer to you.

Question 28

Prevention costs

Answer 28

Costs to prevent and avoid mistakes on the job. Incurred and accounted for before the project, and separate from the project, to create and maintain the quality management program (checklists!). This seems obvious, but most firms don’t have money set aside to prevent errors.
Specifications (products, like plotters that alert you before they run out of ink so you don’t accidentally send a drawing set that is faded on the last pages… or services like a third-party printing service that maintains its own plotters and has a good reputation)
Quality planning (submission to ISO 9001 quality management program)
Quality management (checklists for each project kickoff meeting)
Training (send staff to code officials’ annual conference)

As with all Quality Management strategies, the key is intentionality: Quality is in the budget from the beginning, so someone’s time and conference registration are already accounted for and a manager won’t deny the conference request, nor will the conference attendee decide that catching up on project work prevents her from attending the conference. Attending that code officials’ conference is in her job description.