Facility Planning: Invest Now or Pay Later

For example, a well-designed and constructed building can save in energy usage, which can reduce long-term operating costs. The added initial cost of such energy saving systems may be 3 to 5 percent of the construction costs, but may reduce operating costs so much that the added cost is recouped in less than five years, and the savings continue for 40 more years, resulting in life-cycle savings of eight times the initial added cost.

• Programming. In this phase, the architect seeks to understand user needs, and translates these needs into a list of spaces needed, the requirements of those spaces and the relationships among the spaces.
• Schematic design. In this phase, the needs expressed in the program are translated into a three-dimensional building design. This is the creative part of the process where the architect can take the concepts outlined in the program, combine them with the human interaction and non-specific input of the programming activity, and let creativity take control.
• Design development. Once schematics are approved, the conceptual ideas expressed in schematics are turned into a building on paper. The architect researches various building materials and systems, and begins to finalize how the facility will be built.

Avoiding Common Pitfalls
People often ask “Why don’t architects design energy-efficient buildings to begin with? Then we could save money on all of our projects.”

An architect and his or her engineering consultants only have one commodity to sell: the time of their employees. The design of any building project requires a minimum list of activities that result in a complete set of construction documents. These activities take time, and the amount of time available to the architect can be determined by dividing the fee by the average hourly billing rate of the architect’s employees. When the fee goes down, costs do not. In order to produce these construction documents within a fixed number of hours, the architect must look for ways to shorten the process. One way is to reuse design solutions and details that have been used before.

Money Well Spent
Now, should the architect’s fee be reduced below that required to effectively carry out the activities outlined, where can he or she reduce the personnel hours spent, still produce the required construction documents, and make a profit? Clearly, schematics and design development are the two phases where the time spent is less structured. Hours can be reduced, leaving adequate fees to produce the construction documents.

But what could have been a good solution to a unique set of problems becomes just another school with limited flexibility, little visual excitement and adequate functionality. The result may be a building that neither inspires nor functions efficiently, costing significantly more over its life to operate and maintain than it might have had the design team been given more time to think and research.

What has been saved? For example, the design team’s fee for a $10 million school project should be at least $600,000, or about 6 percent. However, by selecting an architect based on low fees, you may find someone to do the job for $500,000.

That $100,000 in saved fees may represent 1,400 hours of the architect’s time, or more than the entire budget for schematic design. Obviously, with this large cut in personnel hours, the amount of time spent on the soft, or creative, phases will be greatly reduced. After all, construction documents still must be produced.

On the other hand, the first cost of a school project, including land, architectural and engineering fees, permits, construction and furnishings, could easily equal 200 percent of the general contractor’s bid. So now, the 1 percent saved on the architecture begins to pale (only 1/2 of 1 percent of the initial project cost).

If you spend a little more on designing and building schools now, the students will thank you twice: once when they enter their exciting, well-designed new school, and once again, 20 years from now, when they’re the taxpayers who won’t have to pay out more to repair the building.

This article originally appeared in the April 2000 issue of American School & University magazine.