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ARTICLE: Integrated Design: Better Buildings through Collaboration

Everyone is talking about integrated design, but what does it take to walk the talk? This article presents three key elements you need to know about integrated design:

1. What does it really mean?
2. How does it work?
3. What is the cost compared to conventional design?

1. What does it really mean?

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) defines integrated design as an “approach that integrates people, systems, business structures and practices into a process that collaboratively harnesses the talents and insights of all participants to optimize project results, increase value to owner, reduce waste, and maximize efficiency through all phases of design, fabrication and construction.”1

You can also define integrated design as both a process and a result:

Integrated Design as a PROCESS

The integrated design process requires multidisciplinary analysis and accountability to meet high performance and sustainable design objectives that are environmentally, socially, and financially responsible. This must include: integrated design charrettes, performance analysis tools, benchmarking, and commissioning. This is best achieved through the use of integrated design focused contracts and an integrated project delivery process.

Integrated Design as a RESULT

The resulting design reflects environmentally, socially, and financially responsible design, and includes fully integrated site development, architecture, and MEP systems to achieve high performance, sustainable, and optimized design. Integrated design solutions can be broken into three major categories: interactive solutions, multi functioning solutions, and cross discipline solutions. These solutions work in harmony or in conjunction with sustainable systems, strategies, and technologies.

2. How does it work?

Create the appropriate Contracts and Project Delivery Structure

Creating the contractual structure to facilitate integrated design is important to successful implementation. Contracts specific to integrated design typically incorporate the use of multi-party contracts, risk/reward opportunities, no-sue or limited liability clauses, and defined decision making structures. The integrated design project delivery structure brings key team members into the design process earlier, resulting in greater collaboration and a shortened project timeline. AIA’s Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is the most available contractual guideline for integrated design. These contract structures are new to the building industry, but similar structures, such as Toyota’s infamous LEAN manufacturing, have existed in other industries with high success rates.2

The graphic below illustrates how the integrated design process timeline varies from other project delivery structures.

 

Participate in Charrettes during early design

The ability to impact design is greater and more cost effective in the early stages of the design process.3 To fully take advantage of these benefits, the integrated design process promotes development of collaborative solutions early in design using charrettes.

Integrated design should include early design charrettes, incorporating all key team members and stakeholders. Charrette isn’t just a fancy word for a meeting and must include innovative collaborative techniques. These techniques can include goal setting by backcasting and idea mapping ultimately resulting in quantifiable benchmarking. Charrettes should create a space for collaboration and innovative ideas and not be constrained to typical design practices.

Use Simulation Tools throughout the design process

Integrated design requires a detailed understanding of interactions in a building and early modeling tools should be utilized at charrettes and throughout early design. These tools can include early energy, daylight, lighting, shading and visualization modeling. Early modeling must be reevaluated with more detailed and advanced modeling throughout the design process.

3. What is the cost compared to conventional design?

Integrated design offers owners and design and construction teams the opportunity to create high-performance buildings while achieving cost savings.

Operational Cost Savings

• Integrated design is intended to bridge the independent silos that inhibit a collaborative design process. Early collaboration between key team members and stakeholders inherently results in more integrated solutions, and provides opportunities to greatly affect long term energy, water, and other operational savings through design.

Capital Cost Savings

• One of the goals of team collaboration and early contractor participation is clearer construction documentation and reduced change orders, which offers time and budget savings. Risk/reward structures can also result in project budget savings. Case studies show that teams using risk/reward are often more efficient with the project budget allowing for additional investment into the project and shared reward.
• Detailed financial analysis of integrated solutions can allow for elimination in redundancies and reduction in system sizes. This requires analysis of energy conservation measures (ECM’s) that may first seem to be beyond the point of diminishing returns, but may ultimately result in changes to affected systems that can reduce overall costs.

With a comprehensive understanding and correct implementation of integrated design, a building team can offer advanced high-performance solutions through more efficient and creative methods.  In addition, integrated design offers a tremendous opportunity to design and construct better buildings, achieve capital and operational cost savings, and implement advanced design and construction strategies. The market transition to true integrated design requires evaluating a revised contractual structure, implementing more advanced early design discussions and decisions, and evaluating integrated solutions in detail to understand the cost implications.

 

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