School architects may attend three or four such briefings every week, but for any given school district, years may pass between briefings. If your district has no veterans of previous school briefings, guidance for conducting an effective briefing may be difficult to find. Mistakes are made. Important data are omitted. Opportunities go unnoticed. Information is misinterpreted. And when that is the case, the design firms may submit proposals based on erroneous information -- and you may end up selecting the wrong firm for your project.

From the architect's point of view, here are the five components of a successful briefing, plus tips on handling each:

1. Arrival, greeting, and verification of interest. Use a sign-in list to verify attendance and collect business cards. By comparing the list of RFP recipients to the list of briefing attendees, you can assess how attractive your project is to the school design community. The sign-in list is also helpful to those who attend, who can use it to see who the competition is and evaluate their chances of success. Copy the list during the walk-around and distribute it to the attendees as they depart.

2. The presentation. At this stage, with RFP in hand, representatives of your school district speak to the gathered candidates. If existing buildings are involved, place a set of the building plans on view, and hand out small-scale drawings of the building plans. If a previous study has been conducted, make it available. Distribute copies of related information to the attendees so they can ask relevant questions.

3. The Q and A. After the presentation, request questions and carry on an informal dialogue with the attendees.

4. The walk-around. Conduct a guided tour through the existing facilities, highlighting key needs. Your guide should be someone who is recognized by teachers and students. A familiar face provides permission for the group to enter and view what may otherwise be restricted or undisturbed areas. The informal running dialogue between the tour guide and the designers further informs their understanding of the problem. Architects expect a tour to last about an hour. If several buildings are involved and the tour must last longer, let the group know in advance and permit logical points on the walk for those who must leave to do so.

5. Termination, acknowledgment, and departure. At the end of the tour, request and answer final questions and thank the designers for their attendance.

A briefing normally begins in silence. Don't be troubled by it. As the architects arrive at the presentation room -- typically a school library or conference room -- each signs in and sits down in silence. Why the silence? It is the silence of mutual respect -- the silence of competition. Only one firm will succeed; all the rest will fail.

The silence is then broken by the prompt commencement of the presentation. A good briefing starts on time. Each RFP has an author, someone who assembled the document or supervised its creation. That person usually conducts the briefing and also usually serves as the contact person later to answer any further questions. In addition to the RFP author, other staff members should be on hand to provide as much political, administrative, and operational know-how as possible to answer the questions at the briefing.

Typical questions architects will ask include:

1. Has there been a bond issue or other request for funding similar construction projects recently, and how did those plans fare? It is important to be realistic about the odds for success. Regional school systems often require two or even three votes before passing a construction bond. Political compromise may be necessary, and the compromise may show up in the eventual building. In one recent high school project in which two different towns were funding the program, for example, the building actually straddled the town line. There were separate bus drop-offs and entrances for students -- each in their own town.

2. Will the architect be part of the "sales" team for the proposed plan? The promotional aspect of school work is quite separate from the design itself. Presenting proposals for public review can be a grueling process. Some architectural firms are especially good at it, and some school districts depend on the design firm's help. Whether your district is seeking help in this regard can be interpreted as an indication of how confident you are of your eventual success.

3. Who will sit on the designer selection committee? Most committees are staffed by volunteers with little previous school building experience. Instead, it makes sense to seek engineers or architects whose children are in the school system or who have related construction experience. Their contribution to an effective selection process can be significant. Engineers in particular pay close attention to how a process will work. They are familiar with the design process and might even know the candidate architects or their work.

4. What are the procedure and proposed timetable for the selection process? The more time there is to prepare, the more time a firm has to fully examine the problem and prepare appropriate responses to questions. Architects will want to know how long they have for the proposal process, how many copies they must submit, and when they are due. They also will want to know how much preparation time will be permitted once a short list of finalists has been announced, and how much time each contending firm will have to present its proposal.

The building tour

The mechanical system — and specifically the school's boiler — is often a strong candidate for repair or replacement. No verbal description is as telling as what is readily visible to the architect on a tour of the facility.

Most architects will bring a camera to a building tour so that they can insert digital photographs directly into their eventual presentations. (The photographs accompanying this article were taken on a building tour.) The ideal tour guide furnishes a building plan at the presentation, distributes a small copy of the plan to everyone, and discusses it before the tour. If building plans and photos are available in digital form, on a web site or intranet, the guide may offer architects the capability of downloading an entire set of feasibility drawings.

The tour is critical to the architects' understanding of the extent of the work. Descriptions of the work in the RFP can be vague, but the buildings themselves openly display a certain spectrum of need. Leaks and water stains are hard to hide. Overcrowding and other inappropriate use of space is immediately evident. The age of the boiler is visible. The level of care and maintenance the school is receiving speaks loudly to administrative priorities.

The electronic revolution always seems to revise space needs. The extent to which the school has been converted to Internet capability is also always visible. Fifteen or 20 computers jammed in a 10-foot-square space is typical of overcrowded or inappropriate use of space. Upgrading the school library to electronic capability is a prominent part of a school renovation process.

In addition to these issues, architects will notice anything the tour guide says about aesthetic considerations. The selection of a designer is often a direct function of perceived match with school or community aesthetic standards.

The politics of the town are also visible on the building tour. One function of a school is to provide a meeting place and educational stimulus for the entire neighborhood or town in which it exists. Voting often takes place in the school's gymnasium, and the town meeting may be held in its auditorium. Even the location of these functions in the building give a clue to how important the school is to its town. For high schools, sports facilities and numerous championship banners usually mean that new locker rooms and exercise facilities may be a top priority.

Several special circumstances may signal the need for a school briefing. Sometimes, for example, the most difficult problem is not determining future school space needs but, rather, where to put the current student population during renovation or demolition of the old school and construction of the new one. Other situations to consider include:

• Code requirements. A previous renovation may have been in response to specific code requirements. Such questions take on special regional importance and can consume large chunks of the building budget. ADA ramps take up space and must end in doors that can be operated by someone in a wheelchair. In California, some access requirements exceed national standards. In New England, where schools tend to be older, lead paint is often an issue. Asbestos products and fire protection are pervasive in mid-century buildings. Sprinkler systems are a fairly recent requirement everywhere.

• Building damage. In seismic zones, storm-prone districts, and extreme climates, the purpose of the briefing may be to assess the damage caused.

• Vandalism. Gang presence is often visible -- especially in high schools. Older students are much more likely to deface property persistently than are younger ones. If vandalism is rampant at a school, security procedures often restrict access by visitors. When that's the case, the only way prospective architects can see the premises is through a school briefing.

• Air quality. Asthma and air quality-related illness has become a huge problem in schools in recent years. One can't see this problem, but it may be possible to smell it.

• Emotional attachment. There are many communities in our country where new schools are needed but not wanted. Sometimes that is because of the emotional attachment of parents (or even grandparents) to school buildings they once attended themselves. It is difficult to "see" this, even with a briefing, but it is likely to come out at any public presentation of proposed renovations or new construction.

	An elementary school's "spirit of place" is often on display in the form of artistry by its young students, but when the art entirely overtakes all of the available space on the corridor walls, it may mean teachers are trying to improve the appearance of an old wall with no visual merit of its own.

Lack of attendance is the most serious problem for a briefing. If many firms respond to the RFP but few show up for the briefing, the problem might simply be poor communication about where or when the event will occur. Or several briefings may be held by different clients during the same week or even on the same day, forcing firms to choose one and skip another. The job may also be too small to consider, unrealistically short in duration, or too large for some firms to handle in the timeframe indicated.

Firms may also be discouraged from attending the briefing when the RFP designates a small fee for preliminary work but includes no indication that follow-up work by the same firm will be possible. A "study phase" designer can thus be precluded from winning the contract for further work, so larger, more experienced firms are likely to shun the preliminary work. To avoid this problem, the selection committee should investigate the relevant state statutes and find ways to permit the same firms to seek both study-phase work and follow-up work. An interim independent review process by a qualified professional might suffice.

Another problem is that the RFP may not list attendance at the briefing as mandatory. Making attendance optional sends a confusing signal to the potential respondents. Correctly or incorrectly, they may attribute optional attendance to the belief that a "dark horse" architect has already been informally selected and the school district is simply following protocol. Literally, optional attendance means that the client does not need to see the architect. The other obvious interpretation is that the architect does not need to see the building, which suggests that the project involves only cosmetic changes.

Attracting the wrong people to a school briefing can also be a problem. As mentioned, the job may be inappropriate in scale -- too big or too small -- for the firm. Some firms prefer only new, stand-alone buildings. Others are seeking small repair and modification work. Unless the RFP is specific enough to self-select the attendees, many may attend but few actually proceed to the proposal stage.

There is another purpose for a briefing that is intangible but always important nevertheless. A school is the one place where great ideas are regularly renewed, sustained, and even born. Even so, no two schools are the same. In this sense, the essential spirit of a school is not easy to portray in an RFP. A briefing allows a visiting architect to look directly into the eyes of the students and teachers who use the school. The continuing inspiration for a fine new school always has and always will live there.