Working with consultants

The tenth week brings the whole design team for the Stanfield conversion to the conference room, or at least the people who played those roles in the students' earlier courses. Marta Szymańska, the structural engineer, sits next to Kofi Mensah, the mechanical engineer. Danielle Roy, the fire protection engineer, joins by video from a site. Ben Okafor, the cost estimator, brings a printout of his latest estimate. Élise Gagnon, the heritage consultant, arrives last with a roll of drawings. Eberle says that a building of any size is designed by a team, and that one of the architect's main jobs is to lead it. This week is about how.

The architect as prime consultant

On most building projects the architect is the prime consultant: the client hires the architect, and the architect hires the engineers and other specialists, coordinates their work and takes responsibility to the client for the whole design. The arrangement gives the client a single point of responsibility and lets the architect integrate the disciplines into one building. It also makes the architect responsible for choosing good consultants, defining their scopes, paying them and coordinating their work, and in many contracts it makes the architect answerable to the client for their errors, which is why Lesson 6 stressed that consultant agreements must match the client agreement.

On some projects the client hires the consultants directly. Large public owners and developers sometimes do this to control fees or to use consultants they trust. The architect then coordinates consultants who are not under contract to them, which requires a clear agreement about who decides what and how disputes between disciplines are resolved. On design-build and integrated projects the arrangements are different again, and the architect may be a consultant to a contractor. Eberle says that whatever the contractual structure, someone must lead the design, and clients usually expect the architect to do it.

Choosing and engaging consultants

Choosing consultants is as important as choosing clients. Eberle Moss works repeatedly with a small number of firms whose people it knows, and it chooses among them for each project on the basis of experience with the building type, the people who will actually do the work, their capacity and their record of coordination. It asks each consultant for a fee proposal against a written scope prepared by the architect, so that nothing falls between the disciplines. The scopes must cover every phase, from site investigation to contract administration, and must say who is responsible for items that sit at the boundaries: roof drains, structural openings for ducts, fire separations, equipment supports, exterior lighting.

The consultants' fees are usually part of the architect's fee to the client. The architect therefore needs to know them before proposing a fee, and the consultants' share is a large part of the total: on a building with complex systems, engineers' fees can be a third or more of the design fee. Some firms add a modest markup on consultant fees to cover the cost of coordination and the risk of paying consultants before the client pays the architect. Others charge coordination as part of their own fee. Either way, the architect must budget real time for coordinating the team, because coordination is where much of the risk of a project lies.

# Consultant fees as a share of the total design fee (US dollars).
consultants = {
    "structural": 125_000, "mechanical": 160_000, "electrical": 95_000,
    "fire protection": 28_000, "cost estimator": 32_000, "historic": 35_000, "envelope": 20_000,
}
architect = 939_350              # from the bottom-up estimate in Lesson 7
coordination = 0.05              # markup on consultant fees to cover coordination and risk
total_consult = sum(consultants.values())
markup = total_consult * coordination
total = architect + total_consult + markup
print(f"{'consultant':<18}{'fee':>10}{'share':>8}")
for k, v in consultants.items():
    print(f"{k:<18}{v:>10,}{v / total:>8.1%}")
print(f"{'all consultants':<18}{total_consult:>10,}{total_consult / total:>8.1%}")
print(f"{'coordination':<18}{markup:>10,.0f}{markup / total:>8.1%}")
print(f"{'architect':<18}{architect:>10,}{architect / total:>8.1%}")
print(f"{'total design fee':<18}{total:>10,.0f}")

consultant               fee   share
structural           125,000    8.6%
mechanical           160,000   11.0%
electrical            95,000    6.5%
fire protection       28,000    1.9%
cost estimator        32,000    2.2%
historic              35,000    2.4%
envelope              20,000    1.4%
all consultants      495,000   33.9%
coordination          24,750    1.7%
architect            939,350   64.4%
total design fee   1,459,100

The figures match the consultant total of 495,000 dollars used in the fee proposal of Lesson 7. The consultants together account for about two fifths of the total design fee on the Canadian figures and about a third on the US figures, and the mechanical engineer has the largest share, as is common in housing, where every home needs its own ventilation, plumbing and heat. The 5% coordination markup is modest; Eberle says that it is less a source of profit than a reminder that coordinating consultants is work that must be paid for.

Coordination: who does what

Most coordination failures happen at the boundaries between disciplines. The architect draws a ceiling at a height that leaves no room for the ducts the mechanical engineer needs. The structural engineer moves a beam that the architect's stair depends on. The electrical engineer locates a panel in a room the architect has given to storage. The fire protection engineer assumes a fire separation that the architect has not drawn. Each discipline did its own work correctly; the building failed between them.

The tool that prevents most of these failures is a responsibility matrix, a table that lists every element of the building and says which discipline designs it, which ones must be consulted, and which drawing shows it. Eberle Moss prepares one at the start of every project and reviews it with the team at each phase. The matrix is supported by regular coordination meetings, a shared model in which each discipline works on its own part, clash detection before each issue of drawings, and a single list of open coordination issues with an owner and a date for each.

# Check a responsibility matrix: every element must have exactly one responsible discipline.
disciplines = ["arch", "struct", "mech", "elec", "fire", "heritage"]
matrix = {
    "floor openings for ducts": {"struct": "R", "mech": "C", "arch": "C"},
    "roof drains and slopes":   {"arch": "R", "mech": "C"},
    "rated fire separations":   {"arch": "R", "fire": "C"},
    "sprinkler layout":         {"fire": "R", "mech": "R", "arch": "C"},
    "rooftop equipment supports": {"mech": "C", "arch": "C"},
    "exterior lighting":        {"elec": "R", "arch": "C", "heritage": "C"},
    "masonry repairs":          {"heritage": "R", "arch": "C", "struct": "C"},
}
for element, row in matrix.items():
    owners = [d for d, v in row.items() if v == "R"]
    if len(owners) == 1:
        status = "ok, " + owners[0]
    elif not owners:
        status = "NO ONE responsible"
    else:
        status = "two responsible: " + ", ".join(owners)
    print(f"{element:<28} {status}")

floor openings for ducts     ok, struct
roof drains and slopes       ok, arch
rated fire separations       ok, arch
sprinkler layout             two responsible: fire, mech
rooftop equipment supports   NO ONE responsible
exterior lighting            ok, elec
masonry repairs              ok, heritage

The check finds two problems before they reach the site. Nobody has been made responsible for the supports of the rooftop equipment, which is exactly the kind of item that ends up as an expensive change during construction when the contractor asks who designed them. The sprinkler layout has two responsible disciplines, the fire protection engineer and the mechanical engineer, which means that each may assume the other is doing it. The fix in both cases is a conversation and a revised matrix, not a heroic effort on site.

Reviewing consultants' work

An architect who leads a team is not expected to check every engineering calculation; that is the engineer's professional responsibility, and the engineer seals their own drawings. But the architect must review the consultants' drawings for coordination with the architecture and for consistency with the client's requirements, the budget and the design intent. A beam that is structurally correct but hangs below the windows, a duct that is correctly sized but runs through the heritage ceiling, or a light fitting that meets the code but does not suit the space are all problems the architect must catch. Eberle Moss reviews every consultant set at each stage against a checklist, and records the review, so that it can show what was checked if a question arises later.

The relationship goes both ways. Consultants need timely, complete information from the architect: updated plans, room data, finishes, equipment lists and decisions by the client. A consultant who receives a change late, or learns of it from a contractor's question on site, is likely to make mistakes or charge for redesign. Szymańska says that the architects she most likes working with send changes promptly with a clear note of what changed, involve her early when the design affects the structure, and treat her as a designer rather than a calculator.

Fees, payment and disputes

Consultants are entitled to be paid for their work, and the architect who holds their contracts must pay them under the agreed terms. Problems arise when the client pays the architect late, when the scope changes, or when a consultant's work is poor. A pay-when-paid clause can share the risk of a slow client, but the architect should pay consultants promptly whenever the client has paid, and should never use consultants' fees to cover the firm's own cash flow. When the scope changes, the consultants' scopes and fees must change with it, and additional services from consultants must be authorized in writing, just as the architect's own additional services are.

Disputes with consultants are usually about scope, fees or responsibility for an error. Eberle's advice is the same as for clients: deal with them early and directly, use the agreement and the responsibility matrix as the reference, and involve the insurers if an error may lead to a claim. Both firms' insurers will want to know, and they will usually work together rather than let the dispute damage the project.

Exercise 10: building a team

• List the consultants needed for a mid-size school addition and write a one-paragraph scope for each.
• Prepare a responsibility matrix for ten building elements that sit at the boundaries between disciplines.
• Draft an agenda for the first coordination meeting of the team.
• Describe how you would respond if a consultant's drawings arrive two weeks late.

Self-check

• Do I know what each consultant on a typical project does?
• Can I write a scope that leaves nothing between the disciplines?
• Do I review consultants' drawings for coordination and design intent?
• Do I send changes to consultants promptly and clearly?