A Better Way: Engineering Value with a Design-Build Partner

By Joe Pomerenke

Traditionally, construction projects have involved designers and contractors working separately, and sometimes at odds with each other, forcing the customer to be responsible for coordinating their activities. As a result, cost overruns are common, deadlines are frequently missed, and miscommunication can breed serious mistakes. But there's a better way to build.

An invaluable resource for builders and their clients, A Better Way explains and explores design-build, an alternative to the traditional design-bid-build model. This revolutionary approach merges design, engineering, and construction into one highly efficient process. Joe Pomerenke takes the reader step by step through his career experience with this exciting innovation at ARCO/Murray, clarifying what it is, how it works, and how it can benefit the customer experience.

This bold and agile new methodology is already changing the urban landscape with its iterative, real-time approach to design, construction, and decision-making. Design-build is the future, and the very best way to build efficiently.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781544501284

Book preview

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ARCO/Murray

Copyright © 2019 Joe Pomerenke

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5445-0128-4

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To my wife Elizabeth.

For everything.

I love you.

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part 1: Construction is a Service, Not a Product

1. Observations about the Commercial Construction Industry

2. The Challenges of Plans and Specs

3. The Design-Builder’s Role

4. From Warehouses to Entertainment Facilities

Part 2: Discovering the Design-Build Process

5. Visioning

6. Programming

7. Schematic Design

8. Guaranteed Price Proposal

9. Executing a Partnership Agreement

10. Agile Procurement

Part 3: Duplicating the Outcome

11. Developing the Baseline

12. Time Variables

13. Location Variables

14. Advantages of Experimental Innovation

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

About the Author

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Preface

Before you get started, there are a few things we want you to know. First, we’ve always been believers in the 80/20 rule—20 percent of the effort for 80 percent of the result. This has been our mantra for the book, just as it’s the mantra of all the general contractors who, like us, appreciate getting things done.

As you read through this book, recognize that there is a lot more to know, more to research, more to learn, and even more to experience than what we were able to include here. Further, while we don’t pretend to believe that the concepts shared here are our original thoughts, consider this our best attempt at sharing our insights and understanding of the design-build process with the associates, future associates, and current and prospective customers of ARCO/Murray who will read this book.

Our greatest success as a service business is our people. They are our assets and their ideas are our IP. ARCO/Murray has the best engineering minds in the business. Our people are our strength. We owe all our success to these people, who fiercely believe in these concepts and who have championed the most sophisticated design-build methodology in the industry.

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Introduction

There’s Always a Better Way

The story of how I came to write this book begins with Fazlur Khan, the father of tubular design—and one of the greatest structural engineers in modern history.

You may not know Fazlur Khan by name, but you probably recognize the work he did to revolutionize vertical architecture as a partner at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill—most notably the John Hancock Tower (the Hancock in Boston, not the one in Chicago) and Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) in Chicago. Khan’s designs pushed the limits of what had previously been possible, leading to skyscrapers that were lighter and more efficient than any that had come before.

Such a breakthrough didn’t come easy. Like many structural engineers before him, Khan had been looking for a solution to an age-old problem: how to build higher, using less material. Part of the challenge was external. When a building exceeds a certain height, it becomes more flexible and thus susceptible to wind loads. These processes are naturally complex, but for the sake of clarity, think of how wind induces swaying in tall trees; the taller a building becomes, the more it is similarly affected.

When Khan began his career in the latter half of the twentieth century, the traditional approach to counteracting these loads had been to simply make the beams and columns that comprise a building’s skeleton larger, which resulted in heavier buildings that in turn increased the required depth of the foundation. However, after a building reached a certain height, the volume of materials required to create a stable structure became increasingly cost-prohibitive—and often unrealistic. Sure, engineers could design the foundation to support the weight of the building, and they could even add bracing to counteract the lateral movements of various forces acting on it, but too much bracing or too-large beams or columns eventually made it difficult to productively utilize most of the floor area.

Khan was determined to design a taller building that could still counteract the large wind loads at these heights, so he and his colleagues asked a new question: What if instead of specifying ever-larger beams and columns (known as members) for the traditional building skeleton, they completely reimagined the building’s skeleton?

And so Khan and his colleagues took the same columns that were traditionally laid out in a grid at the interior of the building and pushed them to the building’s exterior, linked by deep beams to completely change the building’s behavior under wind. This breakthrough, called the tube, completely opened the interior floorplan of the building and even allowed the columns (now positioned solely on the exterior) to be even further apart than a traditional building, creating superior views. With Khan’s continued iterations of the tube, buildings began to increasingly derive their resistance from the exterior, rather than the interior structure, affording superior resistance to wind loads at a fraction of the material needed for a traditional building skeleton of the same height. By finding a better way to design a building, Khan gave rise to the modern skyscraper—earning himself a reputation as the Einstein of structural engineering along the way. Looking outside of the traditional approach to structural engineering allowed him to crack the code of structural design that had effectively stunted the growth of tall buildings in the twentieth century. In doing so, he made possible a new generation of lighter, taller, and more-flexible skyscrapers that changed the skylines of cities around the world. Our cities would never be the same again.

Epiphany

Born on my grandfather’s farm and raised in a small town in mid-Missouri, I knew nothing about structural engineering, Fazlur Khan, wind loads, or tubular design. All I knew was that I loved playing with my Legos, trucks, tractors, and construction equipment in the garden and sandbox, and I loved building things with my dad and siblings. The first time I remember seeing a skyscraper was on a trip to either Kansas City or St. Louis with my family. The tall buildings in the big cities were inspiring. Thinking back on it now, I realize that I saw buildings as a symbol of progress and sign of hope for what I might be able to do in my career someday.

Years later, I was enrolled in the architecture program at the University of Notre Dame and on my way to making my dream a reality when I found myself at a crossroads. Not even six months in, I realized that architecture may not be the best fit. I enjoyed math and science, but my artistic skills, specifically with watercolor paints, left a fair amount to be desired—at least that’s what my professor said one day when I was out painting a tree in the quad outside Bond Hall. Thankfully I listened. I left my spot under the tree and walked a short distance into the newly constructed Coleman-Morse Center for First Year Advising and figured out how to switch majors to pursue structural engineering instead.

My mom wasn’t too thrilled with me, especially after I got off to a rockier start in the engineering program than I had anticipated. Frankly, I was distracted with all the other opportunities college had to offer, which included Rolfs, Reckers, Farley Hall, Boat Club, and Finnigan’s. Fortunately, during my junior year, a new opportunity got me back on track. I left a job as Student Manager at North Dining Hall to take a research position in the DYNAMO Lab in the structural engineering department.1 My job was to take old-school, printed tracings of the motions from the John Hancock Tower in Boston—which mapped the sine-wave swaying patterns of this skyscraper just like an EKG of the human heart—and digitize them. We would then analyze the patterns to understand why this building, which was notorious for its excessive swaying in strong wind storms, failed to perform as intended. They called the building the Plywood Palace, as its twisting motions had popped many of the windows out of their panes, to be replaced temporarily by plywood.

Guiding my efforts and the work in the DYNAMO Lab was Dr. Tracy Kijewski-Correa, or Dr. KC. Everyone who knows Dr. KC also knows that her passion for her work is contagious. I was fascinated with her research and my new role in it. During my time in her lab, she introduced me to the story of Fazlur Khan and his famous tube concept. I loved learning how Khan’s breakthrough required him to navigate and reinterpret concepts across disciplines. Khan preferred to work in close collaboration with architects, holding a deep respect for the art of structure, as well as the role of innovation and technology, mainstreaming the use of computer-aided design. That kind of creativity is the art of engineering problem-solving.

Another reason this cross-disciplinary success story resonated with me so much was that my academic experience had straddled architecture and engineering. I wouldn’t have to leave the art behind. I just needed a different medium that required a calculator as well as a paintbrush. As I was nearing graduation with a degree in structural engineering, I again had doubts about where I wanted to start my career. Did I really want to become an engineer, or go to graduate school for engineering as many of my professors insisted, or did I want to become a builder where I could be part of the execution instead? Both interested me, but neither felt like a perfect fit.

I’d gone through rigorous coursework to become an engineer. I understood it, and I was capable. However, I didn’t like how many entry-level engineering positions restricted my role to a small part of the building design, with years of tenure required to manage the process. If I had my way, I’d oversee my projects’ design and construction from start to finish. It seemed the fastest route to achieve that goal was through general contracting. The role of project manager certainly had its appeal, but traditionally entry-level construction jobs were more business management and heavily administrative roles. To me, titles like project engineer were a glorified way of stating, Sit in a trailer and process paperwork. In fact, the University of Notre Dame Civil Engineering department only offered one course in construction, which was taught in a classroom in the business school by an employee of the University Office of the Architect.

It was a difficult decision, but entering my senior year, I chose construction over engineering. I had worked the summer before at Anning-Johnson, a large drywall subcontractor based in Melrose Park, Illinois. It was an amazing summer. They gave me an opportunity to work on the Soldier Field Renovation. I also am passionate about sports, and that experience inspired me to pursue a job with Turner Construction so I could be part of the team building the next stadium. I had received an offer