Some CURT Remarks

Having just returned from the 2006 Construction Users Roundtable (CURT) National Conference, I have had some time to reflect on what I heard and saw. I attended the conference with my fellow representatives of the AIA CIO Large Firm Roundtable (CIO LFRT): Teresa Edmisten of TVS-Atlanta and George Temple of LS3P-Charleston as we pursued our mission on behalf of our Interoperability/Innovative Project Delivery task group. We attended the CURT conference with the intent to connect with the owners and constructors as we sort out how to manage projects and project data in a post-CAD world.

Perhaps the biggest realization I came away with was that the architect-centric AEC world I inhabit seems very small in the larger sphere of construction and those that cause things to be built. It's easy for architects, myself included, to imagine that most of the built environment involves us. It does not, and not by a wide margin, I'd say. There's a much larger world of built things that have little to no involvement by architects. There's a lesson of humility in this and a parallel lesson of opportunity as well.

Another lesson of the conference is the current severe shortage of craft workers and skilled tradespeople in the ranks of the construction ecosystem. We architects (and engineers too) are seeing similar labor force pressures, but they seem to pale in comparison with that of the contracting community. The solutions for both communities will require years of working with the educational communities and the professional ranks to remediate the image and prestige of the broader industry and encourage our young people to choose the AEC world for their careers. At the epicenter of this labor drain is globalization and the huge demand for skilled labor and professionals around the world. The upshot of this observation is that the United States cannot simply import talent to overcome this shortage as global labor markets are tapped out of skilled labor too.

The final lesson (there were many more, but I'm limiting it to three for purposes of brevity) of the conference highlighted the broken-ness of the delivery chain, particularly in terms of the industry's readiness to respond with innovative project delivery methods and the development of adaptable contractual standards and instruments as we seek to infuse Building Information Modeling (BIM)/Virtual Design & Construction (VDC) into the delivery chain. The CIO LRFT delegation's mission was ostensibly centered on this aspect of the conference, but I'm sorry to report that little new was learned, save that we have a lot of work to do. The good news is that the industry knows it has a problem with interoperability, collaboration, risk management, etc., as we enter the post-CAD era and there are several initiatives/organizations formed to address this … perhaps too many.

Lesson One: The Architect's Responsibility to the Broader Built Environment

A studied review of the CURT conference attendee roster highlighted the scarcity of architectural and engineering design professionals present. The vast majority of attendees represented owners like Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Intel, University of Cincinnati, Exelon, American Electric Power, General Motors, Proctor & Gamble, Exxon/Mobil, GSA, Citigroup, and Boeing as well as constructors such as Bechtel, Fluor, AMEC, Fru-Con, Gilbane, BE&K and Turner. The trade unions, though reportedly at a nadir in their share of work, were also well represented as well as their related subcontractor associations. While some of the construction and owner representatives held engineering and/or architecture credentials, the number of engineers and architects representing the design community could be counted on two hands.

This group, and most of the facilities they build, highlights the lack of our involvement in the entire range of the built environment. Not that we presently have the human bandwidth to engage all these projects in addition to all that we have now, but it's a fair question to ask why most of us have walked away from our responsibility to make the industrialized world as aesthetically vital and sustainable as we seem to feel it is our charge to do with the more commercial and institutional worlds we comfortably inhabit. Surely the legacy of Behrens, Gropius, and Albert Kahn instructs us that we have something to contribute. For the most part, one comes away with an impression that most industrialized buildings and infrastructure projects either dispose with architectural involvement altogether in favor of structural & process engineers, or that our involvement is minimized to the point of irrelevance.

The convergence of BIM and the growing sustainability ethic seems to offer architects an opportunity to engage the whole spectrum of building types in a richer way, offering real value to facility owners and their respective communities. It is, of course, this same convergence that also offers architects our best opportunity in decades to reassert our value to client-owners in what has become our core markets. This will help us maintain our distinction as a profession and avoid the creeping irrelevance that we've been slipping toward during our steady march away from risk.

Lesson Two: Rebuilding the Prestige of an AEC Career

From my vantage point as a CIO, it's hard to see what impact the craft labor shortages have on the design professions. To hear an economist speak, it portends an economy that cannot be sustained. In translation, I think it means some projects just won't happen because the human resources are either not available or too dear to be afforded. This will have severe repercussions in our community.

As a technologist, I could say that we expect advancements in robotics and continued advancement of digital design technologies to offer relief, but realistically, the widespread adoption and maturity of these approaches are still many years away.

One thing is clear—we must partner with the contracting and the educational communities to reinvigorate the skilled trades with a new generation that considers making the built environment a noble and rewarding life's work. The contracting community is working on multiple fronts to achieve this, with safety at the forefront of re-mediating the image of the construction worker. We need to do the same for our professional talent pool, such as sponsoring a program like ACE Mentorship in our firms to help excite young people about our industry.

Technological developments that reinvigorate the design professions, particularly architecture, will also help encourage more young people to choose our line of work. A tool-rich design environment that gives our professionals a vital and dynamic means of communicating value to clients, that clearly makes a difference to them and in the outcomes we design, such an environment will make for an exciting place to create and should help to attract talent back to the making of the real world.

Lesson Three: Culture Change NOW!

I suppose this section's title is an oxymoron. However, there's no overstating the urgency with which we must change relationships between owners, design professionals and contractors. The August 2004 NIST "Cost Analysis of Inadequate Interoperability in the U.S. Capital Facilities Industry" should, despite the dryness of the title, be required reading for all AEC leadership as well as all client-owners. I've often said that the report's stated annual losses of $15.8B due to interoperability deficits were conservative. I'd be willing to bet it's at least double that. No one could have left the CURT conference thinking we're doing just fine with the status quo.

The point is this—our delivery system has institutionalized mistrust and adversarialism to such a degree that it's embedded in our contractual instruments as well as our software. A ten-year cycle for revision of our contracts simply cannot keep up with the current pace of change. Rumors of modularity in the contracts are encouraging, but we need partnership with the entire delivery chain in developing and/or adopting new delivery approaches and contractual templates with them.

Our software discontinuities are present not only in the design authoring tools we use, but are also reflected in the collaborative platforms where we share our work. In a post-CAD world, we need BIM-centered collaboration and interoperability to extend beyond models and into our project websites, for design as well as construction.

As we CIOs press for greater interoperability and seamlessness in our design processes, we need to have the entire delivery chain moving toward greater collaboration and interaction if we are to realize the full value of BIM/VDC and serve building owners as best as possible. As we are currently doing with sustainability, we need to engage owners in a dialogue about a building's lifecycle, about the decisions we make as designers that have a lifecycle impact. We can then have an exchange of ideas around the information lifecycle of the building/campus/community. The architectural opportunities are immense if owners embrace building information lifecycle management, and the owners' rewards for good maintenance of building models, integration with control systems, etc., are just as substantial.

The silo walls are beginning to be breached.

At the CURT conference, we heard about their new 3XPT initiative which brings together the owners behind CURT, AGC contractors, and the AIA. I recommend to the reader CURT whitepapers WP1202 - "Collaboration, Integrated Information and the Project Life Cycle in Building Design, Construction and Operation" and WP1003 - "Optimizing the Construction Process: An Implementation Strategy." These papers are available for free download to CURT members or may be ordered for a nominal fee from CURT by visiting their website.

On its own accord, the AGC has established the BIM Forum which is reaching out to the design, legal, academic, software, and constructor communities. The AIA, for its part, has established the Integrated Practice knowledge community. Finally, there's the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI), with their efforts to push data exchange standards via IFCs and aecXML. Oh, and let's not forget the task groups of the Large Firm Roundtable (CEOs and CIOs primarily), the Facility Information Council of the National Institute of Building Sciences, and the National BIM Standard. Are we in danger of diffusion with so many well-meaning initiatives?

Finally, an observation about a missing voice at CURT and the other initiative areas: the Building Product Manufacturing (BPM) community. As we move boldly into the post-CAD world, the lack of BPM content for BIM is emerging as a serious deficit and productivity drain in our adoption and leveraging of these new technologies. The CIO LFRT has recognized this at our Fall meeting and we have formed a task group to engage both the software community and the BPM community. While it's too early to share any news in this area, we are seeing hopeful signs of engagement and the emergence of a significant participant-sponsor of this initiative.

I cannot think of a more exciting or challenging time to be an architect-technologist than now. Thanks largely to the change in our technological foundations, the opportunities to realize the CURT conference's theme—"Building Value in a Dynamic Construction Environment"—have never been more within our grasp. Carpe diem!

About the Author

In his role as Chief Information Officer at Perkins+Will, Rich Nitzsche, AIA LEED AP, is responsible for the supervision, coordination, delivery and strategy of all information systems and services firmwide. Working directly with practice leadership, he oversees all facets of information and communications delivery and support. Rich has worked with clients as diverse as Choice Hotels, Exelon Corporation, NICOR, Comdisco, Accenture, and American Airlines. Rich serves on the AIA CIO Large Firm Roundtable, and in addition is a member of ACADIA and ACM. A graduate of The Ohio State University, he has also served on the faculty of Kent State University and has had numerous engagements as a speaker, panelist or contributing author representing technology perspectives as they apply to the architecture and engineering industry. He can be reached at: rich.nitzsche@perkinswill.com.

Established in 1935, Perkins+Will is an integrated architecture, interiors, and planning practice recognized as the preeminent sustainable design firm in the country. It has the highest number of LEED Accredited Professionals in North America (ranked by Building Design & Construction magazine), with nearly half of the firm's 1,200 professionals accredited. Five of its projects are currently LEED certified with another two dozen registered, including one LEED Platinum project. With offices in 20 locations in the US and around the world, Perkins+Will routinely ranks among the world's top design firms and has received hundreds of awards, including the prestigious American Institute of Architects Firm of the Year Award.

Note: The views expressed in Viewpoint articles are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of AECbytes.