PrintThe new Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and the Morgridge Institute for Research (WID-MIR) in Madison, Wis., is designed to challenge convention on many levels - not least of which is the way the project is being delivered.
The 330,000-gsf facility is located on the University of Wisconsin (UW) campus, but brings together private and public entities in a four-story structure with a ground-level town center topped by three floors of interdisciplinary research. Initial funding for the project came in equal parts from the State of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), and UW alumnus John Morgridge and his wife and UW alumna Tashia Morgridge. Construction began in May 2008, with the facility topping out a year later.
Slated for completion in December 2010, the $162-million project features Socially Ergonomic Environmental Design (SEED) to encourage collaborative research breakthroughs. (For more information on SEED at WID-MIR, see the Tradeline report Achieving Interaction via Socially Ergonomic Environmental Design.)
“The University also wanted it to be a sustainable building, one that uses 50 percent less energy and water than the standard research facility on campus,” says George Austin, president of the Overture Foundation and project director for WARF, the private entity acting as the developer for the State of Wisconsin. “They also want a very flexible building with a 100-year lifespan, recognizing that science will adapt and change in ways we can’t foresee at this point.”
The team developing the new facility is incorporating integrated principles and methods associated with the concept of Lean project delivery:
- A single integrated project agreement (IPA) between owner, architect, and contractor
- Early design assist from contractors and sub-contractors
- Use of building information modeling (BIM) to integrate the activities of all parties.
Shared Value Proposition
Austin says that integrated project delivery represents a major culture change for all the participants (WARF, designers Ballinger in association with Uihlein Wilson Architects of Milwaukee and construction managers J.H. Findorff & Son and M.A. Mortenson).
“Traditionally the owner, architect, and construction manager all have their own agendas. The integrated delivery proposition is really about changing that culture and working together to accomplish a shared-value proposition.”
Austin says the IPA is the fulcrum for delivering this. The WID-MIR team benchmarked the IPA developed by Sutter Health in California (and generally seen as a benchmark for Lean) and layered its own value proposition over it.
“We worked for several months on the agreement,” Austin says. “Not everyone is going to have the appetite for that, but we settled a number of key issues: that it would be a single agreement signed by all three parties, that we would utilize a dynamic cost-modeling approach, and establish a target value that we would not exceed.”
Dynamic Cost Modeling and Target-Value Design
Dynamic cost modeling and target-value design differ from the more traditional phased-in approach to estimating which involves phases, estimates, rationalizing, cuts, and value engineering.
“Instead, you establish a target value for the project and the designers perform target-value design,” says Austin. “So rather than designing something and trying to figure out later whether you can afford it, you’re designing within the context of the budget. This means bringing in the lead construction manager and key trade contractors early on. Once this group works through the systems development, you have a hard price on the table that you can convert to trade contracts.”
Early Involvement
“There’s a significant time commitment you have to make early on if you’re going to do integrated delivery, which includes bringing the build side to the table earlier than ever,” says Bill Gustafson, principal with Ballinger. “This means you have to get used to having people second-guess you all the time, which is a bit of a cultural shock for designers.”
The WID-MIR team identified six critical components of the project to approach in an integrated fashion:
- Site
- Structure
- Enclosure
- Interior construction
- Lab casework
- MEP/IT
“The objective was for each cluster team to have one or more innovations, to provide something that was significantly value added, and to challenge convention,” says Austin.
The cluster teams put their package together and handed it off to design-assist teams who interviewed and pre-qualified subcontractors. This was a competitive process, which took into consideration such criteria as how collaborative the sub would be and whether they could accommodate BIM and dynamic cost modeling.
“We really found the design-assist teams to be a significant value-added in understanding particular subspecialties,” says Craig Spangler, principal with design firm Ballinger. “For example, this building has water features, movable walls, and interior planting—all things we don’t normally deal with as architects and engineers.”
Altogether, the concept program phase for WID-MIR took five months.
“I will say that I think it was probably the best process as an architect that I’ve ever gone through,” says Spangler. “It allowed for the relationship of all parties to mature. It allowed the opportunity for the values to be set for the product, not the cost values, but the programmatic values.”
Spangler notes that the five-month concept development phase also established a common language for the team and allowed time for extensive benchmarking that went beyond science facilities.
Building Information Modeling
Building information modeling (BIM) enhances integrated delivery by reinforcing the common language between the owner, design, and construction teams from the design stage into construction. The goal at the end of construction is to deliver an as-built model to the owner that can be used dynamically in the future operation of the building.
“We transition our BIM model over to the CM, and they take our model and add their attributes,” says Spangler. “We’re constantly updating collectively until we get the complete documentation condition.”
A technology leadership team created a BIM protocol manual to keep track of the software that each firm would use, identify system interoperability, and track extended documentation. The manual identifies individual systems and subsystems from both the design and construction perspective. It describes, for example, what the mechanical engineer would do in one case, as well as what the mechanical subcontractor would do, defining the extent of the documentation and who is responsible for it.
“It enhances the design process by really encouraging transparency,” says Spangler. “Transparency encourages coordination, and coordination reduces RFIs and waste.”
Incentives for Savings
The WID-MIR project’s target-value approach establishes a single project contingency, rather than a Guaranteed Maximum Price. This contingency is divided into an automatic and a discretionary contingency.
“The automatic contingency recognizes things are going to happen, such as a lack of coordination in the drawings or field conditions that you didn’t anticipate,” says Austin. “Rather than blaming a party every time one of those things happens, we agreed that we were going to treat them as “no fault situations” and use the automatic contingency.”
Other issues fall to a discretionary contingency which is jointly managed by the Core Team, established in the IPA and comprised of the principals for the owner, design team and construction manager.
“To the extent we deliver the project on or ahead of schedule, within or below budget, then the owner, the architect, the CM, and the subcontractors all share in unused contingency funds,” says Austin. “Some of the shared savings go into a warranty reserve for a full year. To the extent those aren’t needed, they accrue back to the owner.”
WARF is also using an owner-controlled insurance program, which establishes worker safety goals for the project and pools resources that are controlled by the owner. If the enhanced safety program is successful, the result can be savings for worker’s comp and other liability costs to the project. “If we manage the job well, we can actually save a significant dollar amount in the loss pool,” says Austin.
Little Things Add Up
“With Lean, you try to create an environment in which you have a shared-value proposition involving all parties,” says Austin.
One example illustrates the benefit of having multiple people engaged in the design. The exterior facade of the building suggested that the windowsills would be positioned above the floor slab. The designers were looking for a curtainwall manufacturer to provide a sill enclosure, but the CM suggested making the finned-tube radiation system part of the enclosure to the sill trim.
“That doesn’t sounds like a big deal, but when you multiply it fifty times you can save an amazing amount of money,” says Austin. “Also, there was no value reduction with this. We were just able to optimize the two systems.”
No Surprises, Please
“As an owner, the things that worry me most in a project are surprises,” says Austin. “If you set up the integrated team properly and create the expectations properly, you should be able to avoid most of those problems in the delivery of a project.”
Many management techniques—last planner systems, pulled scheduling, reliable promise, etc.—can be applied during an integrated delivery process, but Austin stresses that the responsibility for organizing the team and managing the expectations of the participants falls to the owner.
“If the owner isn’t prepared to take on the battle of integrated project delivery, then no matter how good the contractor or the architect and the design team participants are, you can’t achieve the goal of integrated project delivery,” says Austin. “I really challenge owners to consider that.”
By Lee Ingalls
This report is based on a presentation by Austin, Gustafson, and Spangler at Tradeline’s 2008 College & University Science Facilities conference.
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Copyright 2012 Tradeline Inc.
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ISSN: 1096-4894
Fig. 1
WID-MIR
Exterior
Fig. 2
WID-MIR
Interior - atrium
Fig. 3
Design assist
Rainscreen model
For More Information
Biographies and contact information for Austen, Gustafson, and Spangler
