The profession of architecture and building design is in a slow moving crisis, manifested by the rise in the pre-construction phase and modularization.
A few decades ago it was assumed that the day the contractor walked out of the building department with a stamped set of plans, they could immediately start digging and fabricating the building.
It was assumed that the construction documents would illustrate how to fabricate the building, often with full scale drawings of cabinetry and flashing.
This is no longer true. Even when the plans are stamped “100% Construction Documents”, there is a long and growing list of deferred design-build submittals, shop drawings, layout drawings, and schematics which must first be created before the work can be done.
These include disciplines such as storefront/ curtain wall design, railings, light gauge framing, fall protection systems, cabinetry, methane mitigation, stairs, pools and spas, and structural steel fabrications to name just a few.
So even when the architect has “completed” the drawing set, no one really knows if any of it will really work, since large portions of the project haven’t really been designed.
Worse, even though the developer has let the prime contract, no one really knows if the actual cost of the project is unknown because again, large portions of the work haven’t been designed.
So the plans are no longer a roadmap to follow, but instead a minefield of unpredictable risk. If the general contractor assigned a value of the work which, after it is designed turns out to be insufficient, who bears the risk?
The answer is always, ultimately, the owner/ developer because the only way to mitigate that unknowable risk is for the general and subcontractors to all assign a contingency which they can be assured will cover it.
This is where BIM and prefabrication enter the picture. BIM offers the developer the ability to construct the building in advance of turning the first shovel, and prefabrication allows for re-use of a product which has already been engineered and constructed and de-bugged.