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Let's say your district has budgeted $10 million to build a new school. You engage an architect who talks with staff members about their desire for a world-class model school, their love of dramatic roof lines, their need for a larger auditorium and certainly a vocational area. The architect joins in their enthusiasm, becoming a fellow traveler, if you will. The board likes the plans, too, and puts them out to bid. But board members are shocked when the lowest bid comes in at $12 million. The low bidder says the cost cannot be reduced 20 percent without losing 15 classrooms. The architect says the plans just included what the staff wanted, costs have been going up, contractors have plenty of work to do, and, besides, no architect can guarantee what contractor bids will be. The local newspaper is calling for an investigation. What went wrong? In 25 years of facilities planning, I've seen plenty of cost overruns in school construction projects, and there's usually plenty of blame to go around. Most districts build almost blindly, without a long-range comprehensive plan. School boards are often unrealistic about construction budgets, expecting to get work today at prices the district paid yesterday for buildings that didn't have many of the snazzy new features. Most administrators, teachers, and parents know--and care--very little about costs; they just have wish lists. But even the best-laid plans can be derailed by failing to select an appropriate architect or by failing to work with the architect through the design process. The right architect can make the difference between a building project that goes relatively smoothly and one that goes seriously awry. When selecting an architect, some board members probably will say, "Let's go with a proven quantity," and will want to use the firm that has had a lock on the district's work. Others will say, "We need fresh ideas. Let's give other firms a chance." Someone might even suggest not hiring an architect at all, but instead employing a construction management firm, sometimes called a design/build firm, that handles the entire design and construction process. Typically, these construction-management firms guarantee the price of the final product and provide reasonable assurance of staying on a tight schedule from the first steps of design to the opening of school. Despite the solid track record these construction-management firms have developed, some state laws and district policies still require separate contracts for designing and building publicly funded projects. Which brings us back to the task of selecting an architect. You can expect intense competition and lobbying as architectural firms vie for the $600,000 to $750,000 in design fees that a $10 million school can be expected to generate. So how do you choose? Should you evaluate proposals? Listen to live presentations? Or simply make the selection on the basis of lowest cost? Allow me to offer suggestions: 1. Know what you want. Before you start looking for an architect, you should already have a comprehensive plan for the school district that identifies the scope, priorities, and locations of all projects in the district. A good long-range, comprehensive plan is based on a thorough review of alternative solutions to complex problems involving programs, facilities, and student demographics. Without thoughtful consideration of how a particular building fits in to the district's overall construction, maintenance, and cost-control plans, you probably won't build what the district needs. (For more on this, see "Best-Laid Plans," ASBJ, October 1999.) Even if you have an overall plan, you should bring in a school system planning consultant or school architect to help define the individual project, set the budget, and select the site. Not having a defined project program is the easiest way to run up construction costs, experience delays, and get hit with huge additional fees. You might want to draw up a separate contract just to develop a preliminary layout and cost estimates. Then if the project turns out to be beyond the district's means, you're not committed to paying for further designs. 2. Open up the selection process. Too often, administrators turn to familiar faces to perform design services, preferring the comfort of a proven commodity to the liveliness of competition. But consider the possibility that the district might be accepting substandard work that raises costs unnecessarily and repeats designs without analyzing what was good and bad about each project. 3. Decide how important prior experience in school design is to you. Should you give preference to firms with school design experience, or should you let new blood into the process? Jere Smith, director of construction for Atlanta Public Schools, prefers a firm with experience in school designs: "No matter how great an architect is or how many buildings he's done, you don't want someone to learn on your job. The firm and individual matter. There is a learning curve." Paul Phillips, who as chief facilities officer of Miami-Dade County Schools manages 302 schools for 360,000 students, agrees that the firm and the individual do matter, but notes that requiring prior school design experience is a "Catch-22 for firms new to school design [but who have] other experience." He opens the door to new firms, but requires that they visit the type of school being planned and go through a committee screening that evaluates their competence in previous projects and their willingness and ability to go through the facilities-design process required for schools. Consider a compromise: If you like the work of a design firm that has no experience with school design, try out the firm on a small project. If they perform well, you'll feel more comfortable hiring them for larger projects. 4. Insist on an open-selection process. Public money should not be used to subsidize a good ol' boy network. Begin the selection process by advertising the project in local and regional newspapers and soliciting statements of qualification. Ask your district's attorney to make sure the solicitations and contracts specifically include the wording and intent of the anti-kickback statutes required in federal contracts. Your school system should not be burdened with elected officials lobbying the board in return for a percentage of the project fee. Those fees invite shortcuts to the selection process and inferior work. 5. Require a screening procedure. To make the selection process easier and to appear fair, some school districts develop a roster of architects that they use in turn. The problem with this is that design firms are like law firms: Old partners retire, and junior members leave to start their own firms; so the quality of work at a firm might deteriorate, and you might start receiving designs that duplicate old ones that might or might not have worked well in practice. It does matter who does the work. If a screening process is standard for hiring a teacher, it should also be standard for a decision that will cost over two centuries' worth of a teacher's income. 6. Meet the project manager. Slick marketing people and senior partners might have fabulous computer presentations, but they have no intention of meeting with the new school's principal and teachers, so their person-to-person skills simply don't count. The project manager who will do the work should be present for the firm's interviews, so you can begin learning about the manager's interpersonal skills and knowledge of the construction process. You want an architect who can deal with contractors, work through problems, and accept advice from builders who know the best way to put up school walls. "Check around with local general contractors," advises Robert Cofer, senior project manager at Atlanta's Beers Construction Co. "Some projects can be bid at high prices because subcontractors do not want to work for certain architects. Their designs are too complex and expensive, and their plan details are badly done." The project manager should be able to recommend good people and get along with them. "An architect has got to develop trust with the people he works with," Cofer says. "He cannot go into the project thinking that the contractor is a crook." 7. Use a standardized scoring questionnaire for screening. Asking every firm the same questions makes comparison easier and leads to objective decisions that aren't sullied by politics or favoritism. When I provided a standard scoring questionnaire to help one district select an architect, everything went along smoothly until the firm favored by the board chairman scored very badly. He threw the paper onto the table and shouted that this was no way to pick an architect. The board chose the favored firm anyway and ended up with a school that cost $2 million more than the firm's estimate. To develop your own screening tool, have the staff gather questionnaires from other school systems. Such questionnaires almost always ask about prior types of designs; years in business; number of architects; current job load; specific capabilities; approach to budgeting, scheduling, and design; and so on. I suggest that you go beyond the obvious by asking the project manager a number of additional questions: How do you work with clients? This vague question often ferrets out the architect's ability to work with others on everything from basic assumptions through final drawings. Jim Biehle, the chair of last year's American Institute of Architects Committee on Architecture for Education, says the ability to work well with a variety of clients is especially important in a school district, where so many people have a stake in a new school: "The board wants to know the cost, and administrators want to see the layout. But the faculty asks, 'How do we teach?' And the kids ask, 'How do we learn?' Few architects talk to kids, who have great ideas about the design, and many give only lip service to working with the faculty." What outstanding projects has the project manager worked on within the past five years? The answer to this question reveals specific qualifications and puts new firms on the same playing field as old ones. Ask about contract budgets for these projects versus the final construction costs, and ask for an explanation of the differences. What did the firm do to keep within budget? Do the architects blame the client for add-ons, did they keep the budget in front of the client as things expanded, did they search for different solutions besides adding more stuff, or were they part of the fattening process that drove up their fee? When do you perform cost analysis? Often architects start with your budget and end up with a project that costs a lot more--but you don't know about the hikes until the bids are opened. A qualified person with a demonstrated track record of reasonable accuracy should be providing cost estimates at the program stage (when you're outlining your basic requirements), at the preliminary design stage, and again at the final design stage. What are the similarities and differences between designing a commercial building and designing a school? A building is a building. But client needs--and building standards--differ greatly. School buildings are simple, but their development is not. The building committee for a school usually includes educators and administrators, who are not building experts, and occasionally parents or other community members as well. The architect must listen for what they mean (as opposed to what they say), lead them to cover issues they hadn't thought of, and keep costs in front of them. What do you do when errors are found in the plans during construction? Court decisions on professional liability have not required that designs be error-free, only that they represent competence of the general community of architects involved in such work. If there is a design error, some architects will go to any length to blame the contractor, but this can lead to hard feelings that manifest themselves in cost overruns and later problems with the buildings. 8. Visit buildings designed by the top firms you're considering. It's been my experience that school boards rarely make site visits to confirm an architect's claims of achievement. Letters simply don't do the job, because most people worry about lawsuits if they write something critical. You need to meet past customers, face to face, and ask a few questions: Did the firm meet their objectives and budgets? Does the principal feel that the building suits the program, that the flow of operations works? Would the superintendent, off the record, hire that firm again? What went wrong--and right--during the construction process? Is the design appealing to the eye? 9. Probe deeply before signing any contracts. Require your top-ranked firm to review the proposal for the school in detail and visit the building site. Encourage the architects to ask questions without fear of reproach for appearing ignorant. They should review the budget in detail, knowing it will be included in their contract as a performance provision. Don't let a design firm profit by submitting a final bid over the stated budget, unless the scope of the project has changed and the district was informed about the cost of changes before accepting them. Keep asking hard questions now about the design-development process, the firm's track record in meeting client expectations and budget, and the project manager's plans regarding scheduling, working with school staff and the contractor, and staying on top of design and construction changes. The district will be tied to the project manager you pick for at least the next two years--and perhaps much longer if you pick the wrong firm. So do your homework now, and be certain that you have all the information you need to make a wise decision. Kelley D. Carey, a specialist in comprehensive planning, demographics, and facilities planning, is president of Associated Planning & Research, Inc., in Hilton Head Island, S.C.
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