PJM Flashcards
(28 cards)
Zones of occupancy
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.
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?
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.
Business entity concept
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.
What are accessory occupancies?
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.
If the Owner suspends the project, the Architect can…
Suspend work
Require payment for work-to-date
Require payment of delay-caused expenses
Submit a new schedule
AIA E204 2017
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.
Architect’s responsibilities to prepare for bidding
Finish CDs
Administrate bidding
Update cost estimates
Task dependency
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.
Prime contract
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.
Articles of B101, Owner-Architect Agreement
- Initial Information
- Architect’s Responsibilities
- Scope of Architect’s Basic Services
- Additional Services
- Owner’s Responsibilities
- Cost of the Work
- Copyright and Licenses
- Claims and Disputes
- Termination/Suspension
- Miscellaneous Provisions
- Compensation
- Special Terms and Conditions
- Scope of Agreement
- Initial Information; i.e. identifies project, budget, schedule
- 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)
- 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)
- Additional Services; almost everything beyond a single drawing set with MEP and structural engineer is an additional service
- Owner’s Responsibilities; geotech engineer, everything site- and permit-related, if an owner hires her own consultants, it’s on her to coordinate them
- Cost of the Work; includes construction cost, but not architects fees, cost of the land, or contingencies for change orders
- Copyright and Licenses; architect and architect’s consultants own the drawings
- Claims and Disputes; contract gives architect and owner a choice, before work commences.
•. Mediation then arbitration OR mediation then litigation in court - 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. - 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
- 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
- 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.
- Scope of Agreement; this contract supersedes all prior negotiations and can only be amended in writing with both signatures
How does the owner pay the contractor? Explain each of these
Unit Cost
Cost plus Fixed Fee
Guaranteed maximum price (GMP)
Stipulated (lump) sum
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.
Supplemental instructions to bidders vs Architect’s supplemental instructions
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.
“Top-down” vs “Bottom-up” project budgeting
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)
Smoke pencil
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.
If the Contractor requires information from the Owner, the Architect has __ days to give that information to the Contractor.
7
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?
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.
Summarize AIA B101, the owner-architect agreement
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
Contemporaneous documentation
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.
AIA C401 Architect-consultant agreement
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.
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.
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)
Consequential damages
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.
C Corporation
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.
Descriptive Specification
Prescriptive Specification
Descriptive Specification: Detailed written information on requirements for material and product quality, including installation
Prescriptive Specification: Detailed means and methods of construction
Joint venture
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.
