2 min read
How Can Owners Protect Their Interests?
Building owners contract with architects, contractors, design-builders, or integrated project delivery (IPD) teams to create the owners' facilities....
Professional Practice (10)
2 min read
How Perfect Must Specifications Be?
I would like to produce perfect documents every time. However, I remember Hal Barcus, one of my architecture professors saying, "Architecture is...
2 min read
Is it a Product or a Building?
The manufacturing industry mass produces many of the same, or essentially the same, items offered for sale to industry or the general public....
3 min read
Division 01 - It's not boilerplate!
Division 01 sets the basic rules for administrative procedures of a construction contract. You may think that once written for a particular firm,...
2 min read
What Should I Look for During Submittal Review?
An architect recently asked that I give an opinion about a shop drawing and what was actually installed on a project site. The installation was...
2 min read
Building a Community with Social Media
I am not certain how to measure a community today. Before social media, I could have counted business cards in my Rolodex and friends in my...
3 min read
What's so Important about Submittals?
An interesting question--no doubt about it! More than 90 Specifying Practice Group members, an attendance record, met last week to discuss it.
Defining Masonry Restoration Scope
When is the scope of work on a restoration project prepared? On what does the contractor base his bid? Too often, the scope of work on a restoration...
1 min read
Please. Energy is Not Renewable
Can we please stop calling solar, wind, and other LEED and government promoted energy sources "renewable?"
1 min read
Delegated Design, Concept of Delegated Design: Where is the architect?
The concept of delegated design is not new. Architects have passed some design responsibility to contractors for a long time. A classic example is...