LONDON’S LEADING ARCHITECTURAL
AND CONSTRUCTION SPECIALIST

OUR METHOD OF WORKING

Shifting the effort

Typically, in a traditional process, the Design Programme concentrates the effort at Stage 4 (Technical Design to produce Construction Document). This approach is reflected in the stage payment: typically following a scheme 40% (from start to planning) + 40% (Tender package) + 20% (site and close out).

The inefficiency of this process is shown in the MacLeamy curve where the design effort is put in relationship with the cost of the design change (wasted money and time). The inefficiency of the typical process is shown in the graph on the right.
The preferred process, in terms of efficiency and cost control is the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) where the strategy is “shifting the effort” at earlier stages.
Also in that case, the distribution of the effort along the stages has to be reflected into the stage payment.

 

 

EFFICIENCY OF THE PROCESS 1

Building Information Modeling(BIM)

We have implemented BIM in our process because of the many benefits it can provide including:

• Cost savings of at least 20% by avoiding errors and poor coordinationresulting in delays during construction. The British Government has introduced BIM for all public works.
• We deliver three dimensional models as PDF so, other than Acrobat Reader,no special software is required.
• Accurate cost assessment at an early stage and detailed cost estimation all along the design process always keeping the budget under control.
• The 3D model of the proposed building allows the best coordination between Design Team (Architects, Designers, Structural Engineers, M&E Consultants, etc) avoiding mistake and providingvirtual simulation of what will happen on siteduring the construction.
• Any issues that may arise are identified andresolved before work on site begins.
• BIM allows us to be more efficient because all the information derives from a coordinated model.
• Wecan provide all the deliverables very quickly and without time wasting(plans, sections, elevations, details, schedules).

Compared to a traditional 2D approach, we can save around 50% of our drafting time which enables us to dedicate more time to more important matters such ascreating attractive and efficient designs and controlling the processes.
Our Head of Architecture and Design Manager has 17 years’ experience working with BIM.

 

EFFICIENCY OF THE PROCESS 2

Accessibility of Information

The “findability” of the information during the construction stage (when any delay is very expensive) is crucial.
To avoid waste of time and the risk of uncoordinated or out of date information, we organise the construction package as an interactive document where, just by clicking on tabs or areas in the drawings, everybody is allowed to navigate across the documents, hiding or unhiding Information (MEP, Structural, etc) exploiting the layers exported from our BIM system into the PDF documents.
We adopted an organisational model (same of many BIM systems) implementing navigation through the documents and tags to get additional information. We can organise pdf files also embedding 3D information where everything is accessible with a basic Acrobat reader.

 

EFFICIENCY OF THE PROCESS 3

As built survey

We are implementing a digital survey system to improve the work on site and to obtain a better coordination between the design team and the construction team during the work on site.
The Matterport Pro2 3D Camera captures 2D photography and 3D data from job sites, and automatically stitches them into a complete, immersive 3D model of a real-world job site.
This 3D model can be used to annotate, share, export the point cloud and link external documents (as construction drawings, schedules, details, etc).
The accuracy of the survey is within 1%.