Design debate: The partners in design

Design management was the subject of a recent architect-contractor forum at RIBA HQ. Adam Branson asks whether the industry needs to re-examine its approach to design management, while Elaine Knutt meets two industry veterans with a new take on collaboration.

The move from design to execution is something that has troubled creative types and those that work with them down the ages. Leonardo Da Vinci’s prototype designs for a helicopter and an “ornithopter” flying machine are well known, for instance. The original Renaissance man got the principles right, and his sketches were inevitably beautifully rendered. But of course, however ingenious the design, Da Vinci’s ideas never made the transition from the drawing board to the skies.

Today, the need for someone to take a design concept and translate it into buildable reality is still a real issue in the construction industry. Design management – the process by which an architect’s vision is evolved into something that can actually be constructed – goes back decades. But in recent years, as procurement has shifted away from the “traditional” contracts and towards design and build, post-tender design development and contractor-led bids, the role of design managers who can take on immature designs and develop them successfully has grown in importance and prominence in the industry.

“Whenever you get a design process going on there has to be a management process if it is to succeed,” says John Eynon, architect-turned-design manager and the author of the Design Manager’s Handbook. “What design managers do generally is to articulate the conversation between the designers and the contractors. So, the contractor gets the information that they need to procure and build, and the designers understand what information they need to provide.”

Getting that conversation right is now a central part of a successful project, according to Simon Light, head of property at EC Harris. “It can’t be denied that design management is an increasingly important part of the whole ability to deliver high-quality projects,” he says. “I think that the rise in design management is driven by the ‘drive to quality’ from investors and clients. That drive to differentiate products means that the function of design management is much more important than in previous years.”

Left: On the Shard, built by Mace, Renzo Piano employed Adamson Associates as detail architect to oversee the complex design elements. Right: French architect Jean Nouvel retained design management responsibilities on One New Change in London, built by Bovis Lend Lease

A distinct profession

But is the industry’s current approach to design management working in the best interests of clients commissioning projects and the built environment as a whole? At present, most contractors employ large teams of design managers whose role is to ensure that an architect’s vision can be packaged up and handed down to specialist contractors. That’s driven by risk and commercial realities, but does it also deliver the best possible end result from a client’s perspective?

It is clear that trends in project procurement have contributed to the rise of design management as a distinct profession, particularly in terms of design managers being employed directly by main contractors. In the traditional procurement model, the need for a contractor to involve itself in design was minimal. Assuming that no changes were required and that the designers had done their jobs properly the task was simple: take the designs and go and build the thing. However, the industry has changed, with contractors taking on more design and build contracts, whereby they work alongside architects at bid stage, requiring them to take a far greater interest in design and how that design evolves.

Historically, developing and coordinating the design to a point where the project could go on site was very much the preserve of architects. However, over the years that has changed dramatically, with the shift often traced – at least in part – as a result of changes in architectural education. Architecture schools these days tend to focus on the theoretical and conceptual end of the profession, with little regard for the nitty gritty of how design translates into construction on site.

“As a by-product of the way in which architecture education has become more academic, architects have become detached from the construction process,” says Eynon. “That means that you’ve got people designing buildings who don’t really understand how they’re built.”

Steve McGuckin, managing director of Turner & Townsend and a former head of design management at contractor Mace, agrees that architects have to some extent abdicated responsibility for design management. “To a degree, architects and engineers, by not considering management an essential skill, have let the management of the process drop,” he says. “Other professionals have moved in to bring management rigour to the process.”

Right: New St Square, London, was a successful collaboration between Bennetts Associates and Sir Robert McAlpine. Photograph: Grant Smith. Left: Bennetts Associates and contractor Laing O’Rourke promoted the use of prefabricated elements at the Mint Hotel, Westminster Photograph: Edmund Sumner

Natural progression

But Simon Light at EC Harris feels that the rise of design management is a natural and normal consequence of each profession “playing to its strengths”.

“You want your designers to focus on what they do well and that is providing creative thinking and a unique product. When the management comes in, clearly there is a very strong focus on managing the interfaces between different trades, and it’s also about making sure that everything links with developer requirements from a cost and time perspective. So bringing those wider elements together, the skillsets that architects have traditionally carried are not as relevant.”

Of course, there are still plenty of examples of architecture firms that want to provide a full design management service themselves, not least because it allows them to retain control over a design that will forever be linked to their own brand: “Foster & Partners realised years ago that this is important,” says McGuckin, adding that French celebrity architect Jean Nouvel’s practice acted in a similarly robust fashion when it worked with Turner & Townsend on the One New Change project next to St Paul’s Cathedral in London. “Good management and good design should be mutually inclusive not exclusive. You’ll find the really successful design practices by and large have learned to be good managers,” he says.

Fellow “starchitects” Grimshaw and Hopkins Architects also share a reputation for combining award-winning architecture with buildability and control over the construction process. However, it’s clear that many architects – whether due to a training that emphasises concept over execution, lack of experience in broader design management, or the squeeze on fees – struggle to communicate directly with contractors or their design managers.

The difficulties some practices experience in engaging with contractors became the main item on the agenda at a recent discussion event hosted by RIBA president Stephen Hodder at the RIBA HQ at Portland Place, when the main contractors present apparently “urged architects to regain that [coordination] role as it would lead to a more efficient process” and voiced frustration at architects’ “perceived lack of skill in managing the design process itself”.

Turner & Townsend’s McGuckin, who was present at the discussions, noted later that the rise of the contractor-employed design manager was not motivated by some sort of power grab on the part of the builders. “Rather than the architects saying that they should manage design and contractors saying that they should manage it, the contractors are saying that they’ve had to step in because architects haven’t been doing it,” says McGuckin. “[The architects] admit that they’re not experts and that there is a lot they could do to improve.”

Interrogating the design

Indeed, McGuckin says that there is a general consensus that design management is best handled by project designers, pointing out that it is no coincidence that many design managers who work directly for contractors have previously worked as practice architects. “Design management isn’t just about collating and delivering information, it’s about interrogating the design as well,” he says. “Is it good design? Is it coordinated? The best design managers are designers who think that management is important.”

Others agree that ownership of design management should rest with the architect, who is best placed to come up with design-led solutions to construction problems. “In an ideal world it should be with the lead designer,” says Ian Eggers, one of three founding directors of consultancy Rise and who, when director of construction management services at Mace, led the construction of the Shard. “It’s a point of debate as to where that role should sit, but ultimately it should be with the lead designer.”

However, taking responsibility for design management does not necessarily mean that an architecture practice has to take on all the work itself. Eggers points to the construction of the Renzo Piano-designed Shard as an example. “Some of the best architects I’ve worked with recognise their strengths and weaknesses,” he says. “So, on the Shard Renzo employed Adamson Associates International as the detail architect. His main concern was with the quality of the cladding and the form of the building. He basically handed over all the detail to Adamson and it worked really well.”

But an emerging trend is that project management companies are also moving into the design management space. EC Harris’s Simon Light says the firm is “recruiting design managers on a very regular basis. It forms a key part of our project management methodology.” And consultant Aecom now has team of design managers who work directly for lead designers. Headed up by Nick Willars in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the team will work almost exclusively on behalf of the architects and engineers of a project. The service they provide is similar to that provided by contractor-employed design managers in that they still act as a translator between architect and builder, but their focus is purely on the design rather than meeting a contractor’s procurement and construction timetable.

“The design management we provide is rather different to what you find at contractors,” says Willars. “They’re very much about scheduling packages of work and commissioning and making sure that everything ties in with the contractor’s construction programme. So they work back from the construction programme to make sure that everything sits right relative to a start on site.”

Getting the balance

Conversely, Willars adds: “We try to get the balance right between the objectives of the contractor’s design manager, where it’s all about cost certainty and getting contracts in place as soon as possible, and at the other end translating the architect’s design. We’re able to look at a contractor’s procurement schedule in detail and challenge it.”

So despite the fact that commercial risk pressures mean that contractors have a strong interest in design management, there is a clear feeling in some quarters that design management sits more comfortably closer to the creative source. Even if an architect ultimately subcontracts responsibility for design management, the point is that the process is beholden to the design of a project rather than a contractor’s timetable.

If more architects were to embrace design management – as the Portland Place discussions suggested even contractors would welcome – it would also hand back a degree of power to the profession. As Turner & Townsend’s McGuckin puts it: “If architects and engineers embraced management as a part of achieving successful design instead of dismissing it, they could regain ground. While they continue to ignore it, design management will continue to be controlled by others.”