Blog Entries

in category General Contract Administration, Request for Information and 0 comments.

RFI’s – Five elements of style

pen paperLooking at the construction drawings by some favorite historic architects like CFA Voysey, or Edwin Lutyens, it is hard to believe how a builder back then would be able to price and construct a building using only a plan, partial section, elevation and a detail or two. Did they use RFI’s?

An RFI (request for information) by a builder from that era probably took the form of a formal letter containing fundamental information such as: sender’s address, recipient’s address, date, subject, salutation, body, closing, enclosures, carbon copy (CC) and typist’s initials. (Do they still teach  proper letter format in school with the advent of email?) Read More…

in category General Contract Administration, Submittals and 0 comments.

Avoid the shop drawing dump

File stack

Early in our careers, we inevitably learn firsthand what shop drawing dump means. The general contractor sends all the project shop drawings within a couple of days (sometimes late in the project), and then you are pressured to complete the review of a 50+ shop drawings, within the time limit stated, within the specifications that you wrote. If the reviews aren’t completed on time, there is the threat always hanging over your head that the project will be delayed.

One way to prevent this nightmare scenario is by creating a shop drawing submission schedule. Read More…

in category General Contract Administration, Substantial Performance tags , , , and 0 comments.

Substantial completion: It’s finished, right?

Census_Ribbon_Cutting

Substantial performance and seven important events

Think of all the paper and forms that you deal with daily on a construction project: change orders, meeting minutes, RFI’s, SI’s, certificates for payments, schedule of values, or submittals and shop drawings. So it’s understandable if the forms and paperwork lose some of their appeal and shine over the course of a project. Substantial performance is the light at the end of the tunnel for everyone, but certifying it requires an understanding of it’s significance to the architect, contractor and owner.

First, to make sure we are all on the same page, let’s define substantial performance. Read More…

in category General Contract Administration and 0 comments.

Welcome to the new RForm blog – Substantial Performance

architecture-calatrava

“You employ stone, wood and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and I say: “This is beautiful.” That is Architecture. Art enters in.” Le Corbusier

Welcome to the new rform blog – Substantial Performance!  We named it Substantial Performance because we believe that it is one of the most important finish lines that we all race towards in the construction of any project. However when many first started their careers as Architects did everyone realize there was such a thing?

It might have been all of those Brady Bunch re-runs that we watched as kids,  where we first became interested in Architecture (I loved those open tread stairs off the living room), or reading books on famous Architects like LeCorbusier  where it seemed life as an Architect only consisted of designing and making  pilgrimages to the Cathedrals of Europe, Museums, or any significant work of Architecture. So eventually we make the career decision,  go to Architecture School, get registered and begin to work as an Architect.

“Did the General Contractor make a mistake, he sent me 6 copies of the Shop drawings!?” Read More…