Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Round 2 - Response to Building 7 owners about exterior door colors

[Philip Dowds (rpdowds]

Janice —

In Ye Olden Days of the Bye-gone, the architect was the trusted owner’s guide 
through the dangerous territories of design choices, cost and schedule 
management, construction technology, regulatory context, and contract 
configuration.  In the best cases, the architect was also well-trusted by the 
contractor, and served as a competent mediator among the legitimate but 
divergent interests of owner and contractor.

In Modern Times, the disciplines I list above have grown more complex, and are 
often divided among specialist consultants.  In one version of the business 
model, most of these specialists report to the architect, whose primary skill 
as a generalist is the integration of a great many competing wants and needs, 
desires and constraints.

Now enter the OPM:  the Owner’s Project Manager.  This relatively new and 
highly elastic job description can take on many forms and meanings.  But a very 
common form is this:  The OPM designs nothing, writes almost nothing, 
calculates hardly anything, and builds zilch.  The OPM promises nothing, is 
liable for nothing, and may not even carry liability insurance. The OPM’s main 
purpose is to kibbitz and kvetch about what everyone else is doing.  Where the 
architect used to watch over everything, the OPM purportedly watches everything 
including the architect.  For this, the OPM is compensated with funds mostly 
squeezed out of the architect’s fee.  Needless to say, it’s hard for an OPM to 
claim value added by declaring, week after week, “Everything is going great!”  
Owners are usually more impressed by an OPM who is constantly finding fault 
with the efforts of others.

OK:  This negative characterization of the OPM may be bit over the top.  I’ve 
met some good OPMs who’ve turned out to be valuable team members.  But I’ve 
also met some very bad ones who were part of the problem, not part of the 
solution.  In any event, if you were advised by architect and developer to 
bypass the OPM option, I would agree that they probably had a strong case to 
make.  I don’t know what (if anything) “went wrong” with your project, but it’s 
not obvious to me that an OPM would have prevented it.  To me, a better 
solution is to ensure that the architect has enough fee left to do a proper job 
in the construction phase.  (Clearly, I’ve accumulated a lot of prejudice in 
favor of the architect.)

------------------
Thanks, RPD
617.460.4549

On May 3, 2023 at 3:57:57 PM, jmcarle [at] gmail.com (jmcarle [at] gmail.com) 
wrote:

Such a challenge when you are trying to manage costs. One suggestion I have is 
to employ a consultant as an owners' construction project manager. We (Skagit 
Commons) opted to follow suggestions of our architect, GC, and development 
partner to not purchase an expensive service that they considered redundant. 
However I truly feel this was a mistake and would have - in the end - been a 
worthwhile expense.

Janice Carle


-----Original Message-----
From: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l-bounces+jmcarle=gmail.com [at] cohousing.org> On 
Behalf Of Philip Dowds
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2023 4:19 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Cc: DEL HOLLAND <delholland [at] aol.com>
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Round 2 - Response to Building 7 owners about exterior door 
colors

Cohousing Friends —

As a formerly practicing architect, I can report with confidence that the low 
bid contractor almost surely does not have the same administrative 
infrastructure, or quality control protocols, or high-end subcontractors, that 
the high bidder was trying to offer. In a properly managed job, the contractor 
will submit to the design professional detailed product descriptions for each 
door; the design professional will approve these submittals as compliant with 
the contract … or, if not compliant, reject the submittals and ask for better 
ones. In some cases, the design professional will go back to the owner, and 
say, Hey, we’ve got a problem.

On the design and contract prep end, architects who are paid well can afford 
and retain more and better staff, who then produce more thoughtful details 
showing more exactly what and how to build. A note on the drawing that says 
“caulk all seams” is not as reliable as a dozen typical sealant details, 
matched to a sealant schedule, coordinated with a properly edited sealant 
section of the project manual.

------------------
Thanks, RPD
Cornerstone, Cambridge MA
617.460.4549

On May 2, 2023 at 11:08:17 PM, Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L (cohousing-l 
[at] cohousing.org) wrote:

> On May 2, 2023, at 9:32 PM, DEL HOLLAND via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
> cohousing.org> wrote:

> The fact that the doors were installed without our consent seems to be common 
> practice for this contractor—that is, this is not the first time items have 
> been installed (without our consent), and then (post installation) we were 
> asked for approval and payment.

Obviously, a message that made it to the wrong list but I would like to add 
that this is the way contractors work. They have really tight deadlines and 
suppliers are not fully operative yet. They get what they can get and install 
it as fast as they can because Time is Money.

We had two of our members on site every day of construction before the 
contractors arrived at 8:00. They looked over everything. We had a consultant 
who inspected at key points. We had a grant that paid for an architectural 
student specializing in green construction who was working with the architect 
and clearly on our side.

I haven’t done the calculations but I swear that Takoma Village was built 
twice. The contractors didn’t read their contracts and used conventional glues, 
installed the wrong things in the wrong places, hired dyslexic electricians who 
had their own interpretations of wiring diagrams, etc.  

Lots of things just had to be all torn out and done again. Some things we 
negotiated about and other things we didn’t discover until we did the 
engineering study after we had moved in.

I used to live in old houses. Trust me, old houses have nothing on new houses 
for things that don’t work or look exactly right on the first day.

Don’t feel set upon — it's not personal. I think you are right to figure out 
how this happened but everyone will get through it.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org




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