Chapter 04
Conclusion
This book seeks to act as a practical guide to the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 Stage 2 Concept Design and Stage 3 Developed Design. It illustrates how to view the Plan of Work as a tool for organising, recording and monitoring tasks across the two stages and, together with the other two books in the series, the whole project process. The Plan of Work is intended to be flexible and able to be interpreted at an appropriate scale and complexity for the project at hand.
Key Lessons from this Guide
- At the outset of each of Stages 2 and 3, define what ‘Concept Design’ and ‘Developed Design’ mean respectively for this project.
- Is there a role for a client project champion? If so, who should that be?
- Take account of and review the procurement strategy, logging how decisions affect the types of information required within any stage.
- Review and update the Project Execution Plan (PEP), particularly after a procurement decision has been made.
- Introduce Change Control Procedure in the PEP in Stage 3.
- Review and update the Project Programme at both stages.
- Prepare a Design Programme for each design stage, with sufficient detail to drive consistent and collaborative decision-making.
- Review the validation requirements for a planning application, and ensure they are logged on the Design Programme.
- Include in the Design Programme field-study trips, design workshops and design team meetings, as agreed with the client.
- Use precedent studies to illustrate successful, relevant design elsewhere.
- Plan for an appropriate schedule of third party consultations, using a variety of types of engagement to produce the most constructive results.
- Review and update the Technology Strategy, including within it the BIM plan and referring to the BIM protocols expected for the project that are contained in the PEP.
- Reinforce the use of Project Strategies as a key component of managing the design process.
- Review the existing Project Strategies, and suggest others that should be established within either stage.
- Establish the level of detail required on Cost Information in each stage, and agree the basis on which costs are going to be prepared (eg historical data, square-metre rates, elemental costings).
- Review the sustainability checkpoints under each stage, and update the Sustainability Strategy accordingly.
- Plan the contents for the end of stage Information Exchanges, and share them with the design team at an early stage in order to streamline the production of information.
- Review at the outset the Stage 1 Communications Strategy, which clearly establishes how internal and external communications are to operate for the whole project. Build in a review cycle relating to Plan of Work stages.
- Encourage the design team to look ahead to activity in future stages, in order to give a purposeful context to the actions and decisions being taken in the current stage.
What Happens Next?
Once the client has reviewed the Stage 3 Information Exchange, and perhaps waited for planning permission to be granted, they will issue a permission to proceed to Plan of Work Stage 4 Technical Design. This stage produces technical information in drawn and written-specification form in order to allow construction to take place. As explained in this book, procurement choices can impact on when a cost for the project is fixed or when a contractor becomes involved in the processes leading up to the construction of the building, but on all projects it remains the case that the Stage 4 Technical Design needs to be complete on every element of the building design before Stage 5 Construction can take place.
Scenario Summaries
The three guide books in this series have used five scenarios to illustrate how different types and scales of project can all make successful use of the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 framework in order to plan and develop the design process, and to report progress to clients and other stakeholders along the way. A brief recap of what has occurred in these scenarios so far is included here up to Stage 4 Technical Design which will be covered in the next guide, Construction: A Practical Guide to the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 Stages 4, 5 and 6 by Phil Holden.
A Small residential extension for a growing family
The client family appoints an architect who works with them to formulate an Initial Project Brief. A traditional form of contract is favoured. A Project Budget and Project Programme are drafted in order to set out the scope of the project.
A Concept Design is produced, along with a Sustainability Strategy.
A structural engineer is appointed to the design team, and a coordinated design is produced. The architect highlights the fact that not having a building services engineer on the design team is likely to cause problems later on, at tender stage. Planning permission is achieved at the end of Stage 3.
B Development of five new homes for a small residential developer
The developer appoints an architect who prepares an Initial Project Brief and a Project Execution Plan in order to act as a control document for the project.
A structural engineer is appointed, and a site investigation commissioned.
The Concept Design is produced, along with a cost plan and developed Project Programme.
The client and architect undertake a number of visits to comparable schemes, to gauge the local market taste and price.
A planning application submission is made earlier than usual, at the end of Stage 2.
A traditional form of contract is the chosen procurement route. The procurement strategy highlighted this route as the one best able to cope with client variations and changes of mind, even if these impacted on costs.
C Refurbishment of a teaching and support building for a university
The university commissioned an Initial Project Brief independently of the PQQ (pre-qualification questionnaire) process to appoint a design team.
A Concept Design is commenced, together with commissioning investigative survey work on the existing building. The Concept Design creates the possibility of additional teaching space to that envisaged in the Initial Project Brief. The university carry out an economic appraisal, and decide to develop the additional space.
The university’s procurement strategy dictates that the contract will be let under a single-stage design and build form. The design team will most likely be novated at the end of Stage 3, but that decision will be taken nearer the time.
A Design Responsibility Matrix has been developed, indicating how the novation will affect design team activity.
During Stage 2, the university decided that the project would be a BIM pilot for them, and all design team members have committed to a collaborative BIM regime for the rest of the project.
A significant proportion of the tender documentation allows for contractor design portions of the construction.
At the end of Stage 3, no decision has been taken over whether the design team will be novated or not.
D New central library for a small unitary authority
A Feasibility Study has been carried out, including a site options appraisal on council-owned sites.
Site investigations have been carried out on the chosen site, to help cost certainty for substructure in the cost plan.
The leader of the council has become the project champion.
The procurement strategy is to have a two-stage design and build contract, and the preferred contractor has worked collaboratively with the design team during Stage 3, making valuable commentary on the buildability of the library and, using prefabrication, has offered a significant reduction on the Stage 5 Construction period.
Change Control Procedures have been introduced, as the contract is to be let at the end of Stage 3.
E New headquarters office for high-tech internet-based company
The client has high expectations of the building design, and, after a competitive-interview process, has selected a well-known architect and design team.
The Initial Project Brief has identified design quality and programme as the principal priorities, with value for money driving cost decisions.
The Stage 2 Concept Design has explored many options for this new headquarters building, including introducing the client to many similar precedent buildings in order to gauge their reaction to the design decisions demonstrated within them.
A project workshop early in Stage 3 reviewed the procurement strategy, and highlighted construction management as the most viable option to achieve the specific project requirements of speed and quality. A construction manager has been appointed early during Stage 3, and has estimated that about 15 packages will need to be tendered.
The construction manager has presented the client with a cost estimate within +3% of the Project Budget, which includes some limited market testing of the main packages and which has given the client the confidence to proceed.
A Developed Design was signed off by the client after the cost plan and Project Programme were agreed by the company board. The scheme was then submitted for planning permission at the end of Stage 3.
Due to the exceptional growth in employee numbers, the internet company have asked what the procedure would be for adding an extension of around 30% extra floor area as a contract variation.
The Handover Strategy has been developed during Stage 3 as the client wants to achieve an IT fit-out before Practical Completion, and has requested a Partial Possession of 25–35% of the floor area four months ahead of the completion predicted in the Project Programme.
Why the Plan of Work Framework is: critical at the design stages
It’s critical to use the Plan of Work framework at the design stages but it’s also important to continue to follow the Plan of Work framework for the rest of the project. If the design team have successfully delivered the project to the end of Stage 3, it is useful to know what to expect from future stages. As mentioned above, the next guide in this series discusses Stage 4 Technical Design, Stage 5 Construction and Stage 6 Handover and Close Out. Stage 4 encompasses the completion of all of the pre-construction technical-design detailing and specifying. This information is generally used to competitively tender or to confirm a contractor’s price for the project construction. The preferred contractor for the project plans their Construction Programme, site management and, of course, establishes their final contract price in order to enable a contract to be let. The level of detail required will depend on the Building Contract type, which, in turn, will have been controlled by the procurement strategy (see Task Bar 2) on the project-specific version of the RIBA Plan of Work 2013. After this, Stage 5 Construction can commence. The following stage, Stage 6, discusses the completion of the construction contract and the processes involved in the occupants starting to use and learning about how to operate the building.
It is crucially important for the design team, carefully managed by the lead designer, to comprehend the whole RIBA Plan of Work 2013 project framework, so that actions and decisions made during one stage of the process are taken with a clear understanding of how they will affect, adjust or assist in subsequent stages. Consciously planning for activity in future stages using the Design and Project Programmes allows judgements to be made about how long to leave options open for, and when to close options out in order to progress. Where priorities within the project criteria make it clear that a decision is essential within a stage, it is important to be clear about how the design team will arrive at an objective view – and how they will manage any consequences of that decision in future stages. The principal tools to assist the lead designer in these tasks are the Project Strategies. Well-compiled and comprehensive Project Strategies will plot a route through all of the Plan of Work stages from the very beginning of the project. The Information Exchanges during the design stages can communicate the developing Project Strategies with ‘headline’ outcomes and expectations for the current stage and each of the future stages. This process will mean that the design team can always check the current status of the project, but can also see ahead to the goals of each strategy in future stages.