Thinking Ahead

By William J. Angelo, Editor-in-Chief

	ANGELO

Smart growth and green building are more than just industry buzz words, they are serious concepts that can be applied effectively in many ways to improve projects and the built environment. The stories showcased in this issue of Design Build demonstrate several unique ways of making the concepts work.

The cover story examines a large government-owned sustainable-development project in California. Solano County chose design-build project delivery for its $113.5-million government center in Fairfield to consolidate 16 departments that were spread over 15 office locations. ‘Smart Growth’ was the objective and that is what the county achieved.

Stretching three city blocks long and including a large public plaza, the multi-structure project was the largest in county history. It is located adjacent to an existing courthouse and justice center and a large multi-modal transportation center. Officials believe that it will become an important public gathering space and the catalyst for downtown development.

The center will be LEED certified and was built by integrating into design-build three seemingly disparate elements–a construction manager, bridging documents and a union-only project labor agreement.

On the East Coast, the North Carolina Department of Transportation has another version of smart growth. Over the last five years, this proactive state agency has used design-build to deliver time-sensitive projects that are a critical part of its $1 billion annual budget. The success of these projects caused NCDOT to analyze the results and apply the lessons learned from them to build some new improvements into its traditional design-bid-build project delivery system. They include a mix of best-value procurement, maximized contractor innovation, higher levels of trust, targeted designing and life-cycle considerations.

Perhaps more fundamentally, the agency is developing a new mindset modeled on how design-builders work. This goes so far as to limit the size of some meetings to just several people instead of a couple of dozen so that something actually can be accomplished and not rechecking all of the design details that a professional engineer already has signed off on.

In New York City, architects are learning to become proactive about design-build and take a project leadership role, even though that runs counter to traditional professional views about overseeing construction.

The American Institute of Architects currently is holding seminars in the U.S. and Canada to teach architects design-build basics and to encourage them to enter the market gradually as team leaders. The reward for taking such a risk could be a quadrupling of profit and a better connection with owners.

Many seacoast communities are plagued with pollution problems resulting from septic tanks, poor soils, high water tables and adverse weather conditions. Instead of installing traditional gravity flow sewers Ponte Vedra, Fla., opted for a $10-million, low-cost, low-maintenance vacuum sewer system that eliminates deep excavations and large-diameter pipes. The county chose design-build delivery because it was a new technology to the area and it needed an experienced and cooperative team to guide it through the process. The approach saved lots of time and money and a difficult excavation. It was smart and green.

These kinds of smart growth and green construction projects and approaches are here to stay and will be growing exponentially in the coming years as project owners and the public demand those elements. Design-builders should be building this kind of expertise into their firms and teams now. It is a factor that can tilt a best-value team selection in their favor.

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