Cheap taps, high interest rates and a bit too much detail about novation
Dear All,
Last time I left you I was about to embark on a mini rant about design and build contracting. The ‘righteous rage’ I was feeling has slightly subsided now a certain contractor has stopped asking me questions about ugly taps (I don’t think he sees these but if he does you know who you are!). Said contractor is actually lovely and very good at his job which makes it all the worse! Anyway, now the ‘rage’ has subsided and I spent yesterday fully absorbed in ‘Introduction to Building Procurement Systems (Second edition)’ for another writing project I thought I would pick up the topic in a calmer way with potentially less hyperbole!
Design and Build (D&B) contracting, for those of you who don’t live entirely in my odd bubble, is a system of procuring a building where a contractor agrees to build you say a block of flats by a fixed date and for a fixed cost. He or she takes on all legal responsibility for the design and building of the flats (hence the name). As a client you would hand over all your ideas and drawings as ‘Employer’s Requirements’ to the contractor and anything you hadn’t put in these ERs would be up to him or her to decide how to build without them needing to consult you. I will also mention in passing that they often ‘novate’ the client’s architect to continue drawing and supervising until the building is finished. In this process the architect’s employer goes from being the client to being the contractor and the contractor takes all legal responsibility for the architect’s design work from the very beginning of the design process. (Look here for a better and fuller explanation).
This sort of process was more or less unheard of until the 1970s when it became clear that the British building process was comparatively more lengthy and more expensive than the systems in most other comparable countries. The lengthy ‘traditional procurement’ process most commonly used for the preceding few centuries (and still used today on most smaller residential projects) in theory sees the architect fully design and specify everything about the building project- down to the last screw. This is then costed by a quantity surveyor and then built by the builder. All liability for the design remains with the architect so if for instance you forget to draw a bolt holding up the roof and the builder doesn’t build it and the whole thing falls down it is technically the architect’s fault (note I don’t usually work on these type of projects so my knowledge is academic only!)
In the 1960s and 1970s though the construction projects were getting bigger, more expensive and more complicated, far too complicated for one architect to fully design. There were also more stringent time pressures- post war housing shortages, new hospitals to house the new NHS etc. Additionally, the fast rising interest rates in the 1970s saw project delays have very real implications on material, labour, and therefore project costs. Traditional procurement was beginning to feel less sensible- and was decried in many many government reports and studies from around 1944 onwards (contact me for a full list!). As a result other new ways of procuring buildings were increasingly explored. By the late 1980s design and build was beginning to become fairly common and following the recession of the 1990s further government reports and European Union procurement processes for publicly funded projects (which I won’t go into because this isn’t a lecture) design and build became all but ubiquitous on any project of moderate or large scale.
The design and build process at its best makes the design and construction of buildings a more collaborative process marrying the largely academic artistic and technical skills of the architect and design team with the practical knowledge of the contractor and their subcontractors. It also provides greater time and cost certainty to the client. At its worst it creates multiple loopholes, scope gaps and opportunities for the unscrupulous to cut quality in order to increase their profit. I won’t mention the word cladding but it’s not the only area in which D&B has let down unsuspecting clients. (If you remember back to the Georgian and Victorian building booms though it’s also not the first time some builders have bodged something to make a quick profit).
On the scale of projects I work on I couldn’t attempt them safely without the expertise of specialist contractors to guide the detailed technical design though so imperfect as it is a well managed D&B has tended to work ok, even if said contractors do send me too many emails about taps.
Until next time (and with apologies for the scarcity of images this time)!
Eleanor