Architects have a tricky job since we need to try and design a building at a time and place under certain conditions that have never been done the same way in the past with changing economies and regulations. We also need to ensure the stuff we design is on track with the construction budget. This has become increasingly difficult with the shortages in labor and materials that we are now facing.
To save time in the bidding process for builders, and to design projects that are on track with the budget, Josh Architects has developed a 4-part bidding process composed of a “poke”, a “gut”, a “ROM”, and a bid to ensure we get frequent pricing feedback from builders as we progress through the design process. We try to spend as little time as possible designing a project, so we can get a series of preliminary estimates back from builders. This frequent feedback saves our clients money on design fees since we are able to stay on the right path as we continue to add more detail to the design solution and get sequential feedback from builders as we do it. The last thing we want to do is design an entire project and later find out that it is not on budget. The baby steps we take with out poke-gut-ROM-bid process keeps us on track, and we never end up spending time adding specific details to our plans until the whole project team is confident we are on target.
When we first start designing a project, we use our experience and intuition to design and draw something that meets the clients goals while also being reasonable with regard to construction cost. This involves coaching clients on whether or not their goals are reasonable, and instructing them to remove parts of the scope of work before we start designing. Many client still want us to design something with all of their goals (instead of removing scope), just to see how the estimates look as they come in. When the estimates come in too high, then we start removing more scope. The goal is to spend as little time/money as possible to get estimates, so less time/money is wasted getting to that point. In other words, we don’t want to walk too far down the wrong path before realizing that we are actually on the wrong path. Doing a little work, getting an estimate, and then revising a little more before we get another estimate is the best way to vet the scope of work to ensure it is on track. The past couple years have been especially challenging since the shortage of labor and materials has really sent construction cost soaring.
Watch the video below to get a better understanding of our 4-step process:
If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help