The architectural and construction professions have always worked together. Working well together is another story.
Often possessing divergent backgrounds and agendas, the two sectors generate frequent friction in clashes over design elements, change orders and timetables for a given project. While the historic tension has certainly not derailed the building process, most observers acknowledge that the clashes can lead to cost overruns, delays and other headaches for any client locked into the crosshairs of such a quagmire.
Richard Fitzgerald said he was immediately struck by the discord when he joined the Boston Society of Architects in 1985. “It was clear to me that the architectural profession and the construction profession needed to be closer than they were,” the BSA’s executive director recalled recently. While others seemed to agree, Fitzgerald said true progress on the matter did not occur until the real estate world was gripped in the throes of the region’s worst real estate crash ever in the early 1990s.
Looking to improve profitablity, survive the downturn and yield a better product, the BSA participated in a “future search conference” on Martha’s Vineyard in 1992 with some 100 architects, contractors, engineers and real estate clients. “By the end of the four days, it was a love fest,” Fitzgerald said, or at least enough of a success that it led to an unprecedented partnership with the Associated General Contractors of Massachusetts.
Known as the AGC/BSA Committee on Recommended Practices in the Building Industry, the task force has endured ever since. “This really was a strategic alliance,” said Fitzgerald, one that “will be sustained because it is so invaluable.” Although the committee today no longer meets as frequently as it did at the outset, Fitzgerald said he considers the group to still be essential to both industries, as well as such represented specialists as real estate attorneys, engineers and construction managers, all of whom are represented on the task force.
One popular event sponsored by the coalition is the AGC/BSA Client Recognition Awards, which fetes innovative clients in the commercial, institutional and public real estate markets. The sixth annual ceremony will be held next month at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge. The AGC is also an active participant in the BSA’s annual Build Boston convention and trade show, slated this year for Nov. 18-20 at the World Trade Center in Boston.
Perhaps the partnership’s most tangible outcome to date is its “Client Advisor” publication, a 54-page tome that helps building clients understand various alternative project delivery systems such as design/build or construction management. Thousands of copies have been sold since the book was first produced in 1997 following a series of white papers, committee meetings and market surveys. The “Client Advisor” is now in its third printing, and is currently being marketed across the country by the national Associated General Contractors organization.
“The building industry nationally is a lot less collegial than it is here,” he said, crediting the partnership with the AGC as being the driving force in that regard. “I believe [both associations] are proud that they have changed the culture in Massachusetts,” he said.
AGC/Massachusetts immediate past Chair Jack C. Hobbs was a leading driver for that organization in pursuing the alliance with the architects, and in producing “Client Advisor,” said Robert Brown, former BSA President and principal with CBT/Childs Bertman Tseckares in Boston. Brown calls the “Client Advisor” “an ideal guide for clients to see alternative methods for construction and utilization of design services.” Not only does it help save time and money, Brown concurred that the consistent message of cohesiveness amongst the project team is equally critical.
“That’s the key thing,” said Brown. “The team is an important piece that the “Client Advisor” is talking about versus creating competition between the designers and the contractors as you go forward.”
The AGC/Mass has long been a leading proponent of alternative delivery options and for fostering greater cooperation throughout the industry, and not just with the architects. In recent years, for example, the AGC has strengthened its relationship with the Associated Subcontractors of Massachusetts, and is also now involved in a new safety program with the Occupational Safety & Health Administration to ensure greater compliance of OSHA regulations on the jobsite.
“The AGC (of Massachusetts) is a great organization to work with,” said Fitzgerald, citing AGC/Mass President Robert L. Petrucelli and marketing director Mary A. Gately for helping make the joint task force an effective vehicle to share ideas and pursue stated goals.
As for the BSA, Fitzgerald noted that the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects is the only one that allows non-architects to be members. About half of the group’s 4,000 dues payers are not architects, said Fitzgerald, maintaining that has further broadened the BSA’s role in real estate planning and development. Another symbol of that global view of the built environment is the aforementioned Build Boston, a program which annually brings together tens of thousands of real estate professionals from across the country and even overseas. “Build Boston from day one has brought the industry together,” said Fitzgerald, who will oversee the event for the nineteenth time this year.
Whether it be through the trade show, the task force or by being in regular contact with other real estate disciplines through its open enrollment policy, the BSA is committed to helping unify the building universe on a sustained basis, said Fitzgerald. “The goal is to think about the industry in a much larger sense,” he said, one that sees architecture as part of a three or four legged stool rather than a field unto itself.
