Design trends
Technology executes design more efficiently with less conflict

By Candy McCampbell

Design technology is changing the way south central architects and contractors interact at the jobsite.

E-mail, three-dimensional drawings, interactive Web sites and video conferencing are just a few of the technological tools that architects and contractors use to execute design more efficiently and with less conflict.

For example, at the Richard Sheppard Arnold U.S. Courthouse in Little Rock, technology helped the mechanical and electrical subcontractors stop on-the-job conflicts before they started.

"They used computer-aided design to produce drawings and had a series of meetings to discuss the coordination of work - the routing of pipes, conduit, HVAC vents," said Michael Barker, project manager for Caddell Construction Co. Inc., the general contractor.

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"This was months before we started on the above-ceiling work. It limits the number of conflicts we have during installation."

Electronic filing formats were also used at the site, said John Greer Jr., a designer with architect Witsell Evans Rasco of Little Rock. Drawings and specs were scanned as tiff and pdf files, then posted to a closed Web site where contractors could download and print whatever they want, he added.

The SmithGroup in Detroit, designer of a new research building being built

at St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, has relied extensively on technology to communicate with contractor Skanska USA Building Group at the site.

"If there is an issue in the field, we have the ability to take a digital photo and e-mail it, then have a realistic discussion," said Tim York, Skanska project manager. "We don't have to wait three days until the architect can get down here. We can make more informed decisions with real information."

The architect can "instantly see what the other person is talking about," said Tom Winkeljohn, project architect. "We can easily discuss it simultaneously."

Five years ago, the parties were sending drawings back and forth via FedEx, but today they can make changes in real time from multiple locations using video conferencing, York said.

"Our cell phones, computers, e-mail and PalmPilots enable us to communicate as much as we need to," said Steve Kinzler, CEO of the Wilcox Group, a Little Rock architecture firm.

"With e-mails now, we can ask questions of one another, and with copies going to 12 people, someone might say 'I know something about that.' It becomes an electronic communications network" that accommodates input from several perspectives, he said.

Technology, including 3-D modeling, "helps us with engineers, and vice versa," Kinzler added. "We can really coordinate our drawings back and forth better."

At first, architects were slow to give up the use of two-dimensional drawings to illustrate a three-dimensional building, said Chris Giattina, principal in Giattina Fisher Aycock Architects in Birmingham.

"We were slow at grasping a fundamental change staring us in the face, one that would completely change the way we do business," he said.

The 3-D building information model allows architects, clients, construction managers and other design team members to see a column's depth and width, or to observe the structural needs of a high-rise building.

Stephen Kulinski, principal at Gresham Smith and Partners, an architect and engineering firm in Nashville, calls 3-D modeling "the no-surprise school of design."

"It's easier to visualize," he said. "The accuracy of a drawing is a whole lot higher now that everything is done with computer."

PowerPoint and 3-D drawings are tools that Bruce Wood, partner in JH&H Architects in Jackson, Miss., counts on, especially for college and university building projects.

He stores photos of buildings that would work on a campus and calls them up in client meetings to show what's out there.

"It's a great design tool," he said. "It helps in consensus-building to show them immediately."

Three-dimensional software, for example, can show a client how a church steeple would look with lighting at various wattages and at different places on the structure.

"The process still takes as long, but it allows us to make better decisions," Wood added. "We're making decisions based on precise information instead of an educated guess."

John Madole, senior project manager for American Constructors Inc., general contractor for the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, said the ability of architects to communicate three-dimensional designs to contractors at the jobsite "has dramatically impacted the way we communicate."

The Schermerhorn's 28 designers are scattered across the country.

"Most of our correspondence is now e-mail and pdf files," Madole said. "We receive it from designers in that fashion and we transfer electronically to subcontractors and vendors daily."

American Constructors also uses a modeling program so subs can trouble-shoot problems that might not be apparent in the drawings.

The subs' weekly meetings serve an important purpose, said Randy Nale, senior project manager at Earl Swensson Associates in Nashville, architect of record for the center.

"It avoids problems in the field because they're thinking it through," Nale added. "They are all conscious" of other trades working in the same area.

"One of the most important aspects of an architect's job is to be an effective communicator," said Marshall Anderson, principal in ArchitectureWorks in Birmingham.

"To that end, computers have made information - be it product research, drawing files, 3-D models, or day-to-day communication - much more accessible."

Jeff Carrico, vice president of White Spunner Construction in Mobile, Ala., and project manager for the RSA Battle House Hotel renovation in Mobile, said he doesn't know how a construction team would function without communication.

"The Battle House is handled primarily by e-mail - the architect, the design architect and engineers are in different states," he said. All staff members carry a BlackBerry, especially in the field to be alert to the arrival of new design documents.

Jack Blake, associate principal at Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates in Atlanta, architect for the Battle House project, said technology has improved the speed of communication and enabled quicker decision-making.

"We did 3-D modeling of the tower and the entire city, so the owner could see what his tower would look like in the city, the components of the building, the interior, the details," he said. That also was "conveyed to the contractor so they could see how they were supposed to look," Blake added.

A Web site will soon become a "must" at the jobsite.

"I've found that Web-based project management and e-mails lead to more detailed and documented communication between all parties," said Joseph Crain, principal in Guild Hardy Architects in Biloxi, Miss.

Gresham Smith and Partners' Kulinski said a Web site has "all of the correspondence, all of the drawings, any of the information related to that job. I can put in information the contractor can access and the contractor can put in information that I can access."