Alternative Design

Fast Track, difficult projects allow easier delivery

by Lucy Bodilly

Communications skills and problem solving reach a new level of importance during a design-build project, according to Barbara Jackson, a national expert on the process. Jackson and Nick Watny, both professors at the University of California, Santa Barbara addressed a recent meeting of the Design Build Institute of America.

Jackson, who owned a design build construction firm in the '80s, teams with Watny, a licensed architect to teach students how communication between disciplines can enhance a project.

In a design bid build project, team members tend to protect their own turf - and set up lines of communication that say "You aren't going to mess with me," Jackson said. In design build, the key has to be integration of all disciplines. "The design bid build project is like marching - a design build project is a dance," she said.

Owners in the Northwest continue to see the benefit of alternative delivery contracts especially for highly technical fast track projects that need to be done with a fixed cost.

Both design build and contractor at risk contracts, push the financial risk to the contractor and allow the owner to get a project done for a fixed cost. They also allow the contractors, architect and engineers to work together at the earliest phases of the contract.

At the University of Washington, the state allowed a design build contract for its recently completed research and technology building.

"The university needed the get the very best return on the investment possible, so we built it like they would in the private sector," said Eric Smith, UW project manager.

Design build was chosen to identify accurate costs right away, plus give a speedy delivery that can't be accomplished in the design bid build world, Smith said.

US Coast Guard Facility,
Seattle Washington

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The team was awarded this project as the result of a design-build competition for the United States Coast Guard. This ground-up facility is designed as a hub for USCG administration and communications at the US Coast Guard's Integrated Support Command (ISC) Seattle. Located adjacent to Pier 36 on Seattle's waterfront, the building functions primarily as an office and communications center for the Coast Guard.

The four-story building houses a command center and vessel tracking center where all marine activity is tracked in Puget Sound, the Washington coast, and into Southern Canada.

The structural steel frame system is designed to meet Department of Defense AT/FP (Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection) requirements, with security standards that include progressive collapse avoidance and blast resistance. The exterior cladding system is a combination of metal panels, glazing and precast concrete or CMU.

To counter the soil conditions on this waterfront site, the design team employed a "stone column" ground improvement strategy. The building is supported on vibratory driven "stone columns" that improve the soil and minimize the potential for liquefaction during seismic events.

The design-builder for the project, Howard S. Wright Construction, worked with the design for the management and direction of both the design and construction process for this new federal building.

Brightwater Treatment Plant