EPISODE: 001 - PLAN OF WORK

BYTNAR - TALKS

EPISODE: 001 - PLAN OF WORK

This episode is for people who want to know more about the process of project design and delivery.

If you ask yourself questions:

• How are architects and engineers approaching project design and definition?

• What are the RIBA Stages of Work?

• How do they do it differently in other countries?

• What should I think about when planning a construction project?

This episode should give you a broad idea of how it is done in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction.

LET'S TALK ABOUT YOUR PROJECT

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Engineer Takes on Construction – Episode One

Hi, I'm Piotr Bytnar. Each day, I help my clients plan and design building projects through Bytnar Limited, a consulting chartered structural engineering practice. My biggest passion—and the cornerstone on which I've built my business—is finding clever solutions for construction projects.

I am a chartered structural engineer and a buddying  software developer, so you can rest assured that I will strive to talk about best practices and the use of new technologies in the industry. If you're embarking on a construction project, or are involved in planning, designing, and building the world around us, you'll find this podcast useful. This episode is about the process of building project development—aka the Plan of Work.

Hello you, and thank you for tuning into this podcast. It was a long time in the making, and it is this year's resolution that I intend to stick to. Hopefully, it won't end up like one of those physically important ones that end up costing your wallet rather than improving your lifestyle. I trust that in a year's time, I'll be able to revisit this and say, "Wow, we went a long way." But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves—let's deliver this one.

You've listened to the intro, so you more or less know who I am, what I stand for, and what I want to talk about in this podcast.

You see, on a daily basis, I enjoy having conversations with my colleagues, clients, and fellow professionals. Some of these conversations are heavy and important, some are light and facetious, but with all these interactions, I come out richer on the other side. I hope this podcast will be like one of those conversations—after several minutes, or maybe several dozen minutes, you end up enriched with something new or maybe a different perspective on an aspect of your everyday life that you haven't thought about before. It may not be the first conclusion that pops into one's mind, you see, but conversation is a tool for personal and professional growth for me. I realized that I would love to share my take on the architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry with you, and use this podcast to improve myself as a speaker—and in the process, give you some food for thought.

I hope this podcast will start many conversations and opinions. I hope you'll not hesitate to share with me—either by commenting on this material, sharing it with your colleagues, or even popping me a little message on LinkedIn. I do not bite, and I would very much like to hear from you—either in person, through social media, LinkedIn, whatever. I really don't care. Let's use these tools to start a conversation.

I do not want this to be a lecture, though. I want to talk about important things in simple terms.

Many construction teams are assembled for the first time on any given project—and usually the last time—with all those different people: contractors, designers, architects, engineers, M&E specialists, whoever, and clients meeting for the first time, going through the project, and then that’s that. End of story. Maybe we work on another project together—maybe not. It really depends. But generally speaking, it’s usually the case that it’s a one-off, and then we come back on another project with a different sort of mix—different people, different expertise.

Most investors embark on construction for the first—and only—time in their lives. That’s a lot of money management to handle without prior experience.

From the intro, you know who I am. But not many people know that I’m also married into a plastic manufacturing family. And with the ongoing research and development projects in AI for AEC—that’s architectural, engineering, and construction—I’m a proponent of visionary thinking with well-defined processes, which can be changed or improved upon.

Things like the Toyota Way that revolutionized the manufacturing industry—and its application to development and operations of software or manufacturing processes. Concepts of Hoshin Kanri  and Kaizen—using Kanban to visualize work—those sorts of ideas and that sort of approach to the everyday running of business, everyday running of project delivery or project definition, somehow evades the AEC industry.

So how about construction projects? Is there anything like what I just mentioned?

Well… kind of.

You see, all of those process-driven ways of thinking—how to approach the whole definition of a project—it’s a little bit hit-and-miss. But the RIBA, the Royal Institute of British Architects, saw that as an issue back in the last century and devised the RIBA Plan of Work. Over the years, it’s evolved into what we now call the RIBA Plan of Work 2020, which is what this episode of the podcast will concentrate on.

Funny thing with the RIBA Plan of Work—when I started my career about ten years ago, I had just finished an HNC program and was starting my bachelor's degree while working at the same time. I wanted to know it all. It wasn’t enough to just know Hooke’s Law or UL’s equations, all that engineering talk—stiffnesses and bending moments and shear. I wanted to know more.

In my perspective, when I was joining the industry, I thought: “Come on, it’s simple. It’s buildings, right? It’s roads. It’s stuff we’ve been doing for thousands of years now. It should be simple. Someone should have a good grasp of it and be doing a good job day in and day out.”

I soon realized that isn’t the case. Most businesses, most projects, most designs and deliveries of these projects are a little bit hit-and-miss.

When I approached my then- former director and business owner, talking about the stages of work on one of the projects, I got this disdained look and a comment: “What’s stage three? Stop talking like an architect. Just get on with the job, design it, and push it out of the office.”

So I did.

Later on—listening to symposiums, going to trade shows, listening to professionals at the peak of their careers doing massive projects—it seemed like it’s a similar case to what the smaller projects go through, just on a much, much larger scale.

So, without further ado—let’s talk about the Plan of Work, shall we?

So, project definition and delivery process — that's a good one, right? If you work on a small project, everyone just gets on with it. Maybe on a more complex one, there's a little bit more of the organizational skills there, but it seems like everyone just pushes on the papers, pushes on the specifications down the line until — yeah, we’ve got a hole in the ground, and then there is a building standing upon that hole. And hopefully, at the end of the process, the person who pays for it is happy with it, or actually makes money off of it.

The trouble with the approach to the whole thing is that it’s greatly disjointed, you see. For the plan of works, I’ve pondered a lot how to begin talking on this subject. I think it sort of seems a little bit removed if you don’t get the context of how important it is in the planning, designing, and executing of a construction project.

So, I realized that it would be best to talk about it in six points. Point number one will be about how projects are defined and delivered in different places in the world. There is a great table at the beginning of the introductory guide to RIBA Plan of Work, which you can find on the RIBA website, and I’ll use that to reflect on differences between the world and here.

Then, I’ll move to point number two to talk about how things look in general in Britain on projects up to 1 million pounds. These sorts of projects are my bread and butter, and I’m very often included within the design and execution team at all sorts of different stages. I have a breadth of knowledge and experience delivering such projects, and I can tell you that it is a wild, wild west very often out there.

Then, I’ll talk about a similar thing but on slightly larger projects — projects that go over 1 million pounds, perhaps up to 5 or 10 million pounds. I’ve worked on and advised all different aspects of delivery of such projects from different perspectives. They’re not as frequent in our office as of yet, but nevertheless I see a big difference between those under 1 million and those up to 10 million.

Then I’ll move on to say what the Plan of Work is, what the stages of it are — there are eight of them: two pre-design, the definition of the project, then several that are about defining and designing the actual project, and then execution, handover, and use. I’ll talk a little bit about the history of the Plan of Work, briefly mention the changes, and then get to the current Plan of Work 2020, which is the one that our industry is currently working with.

And finally, with point six, I’ll say a couple of words about how the process should look, starting from Stage 0 all the way to Stage 0 — and I know that will intrigue you, but you’ll find out why soon.

So, how do things look in the world? Historically, delivery of building projects was done by rules of thumb. Empirical approaches usually defined and guided the builders — or architects, if you like — of the past. I wouldn’t hang myself too much on the word “architect,” as it describes anyone who deals with definition and the build of a project. So it’s not, per se, the modern definition of an architect as a person who’s registered with the Board of Architects — that’s not the point.

Architecture is a broad science — the science of creating useful spaces for people. When I talk about architecture historically, that’s what I mean. And architecture was pretty much that throughout the ages: using empirical rules that were passed from master to master, either by written records or just by word of mouth. Some forgotten, then rediscovered, then forgotten again, then rediscovered again — a little bit of a circumstance we’ve got now. Although we claim that we’re so much better now with all the IT solutions, computerized ways of doing things, AI and whatnot, we tend to do the same thing. We tend to forget good ways of working, then we rediscover them, reapply them.

And, funny enough, we’ve been building for quite some time now — several thousands of years, maybe longer if you ask your archaeological friends — but we didn’t go that much ahead of our ancestors. We still build buildings that are simple, that protect us from the environment. They may be a little bit leaner when it comes to the use of materials, but they’re not that lean as one would like them to be. They’re not optimized, per se. For most of the time we’ve been building buildings on a whim, if you like. Then came the time of industrialization, and putting processes in place — thinking about delivery of either manufactured bits and bobs or buildings, per se, in a well-structured way. Obviously, Britain is in the forefront of such thinking, being the one that started the Industrial Revolution. But it wasn’t until 1963 that we had the first Plan of Work in place.

And it’s still the case in many countries around the world that projects are being conceived in a hurried, haphazard, or whimsical fashion — designed quickly and roughly, or slowly and painstakingly. But still, between countries and regions of the world, things are delivered a little bit differently from one another.

However, one can easily see that there are some sections of the project delivery that are the same for everyone. We can find that most construction project development processes can be divided into what I call four sections:

1. The pre-design stage — where a business case or personal need arises, and it’s found to be best fulfilled by a building or construction project.

2. When that’s defined, and we know what sort of project we’d like to move forward with, we go into the design section of the process — which obviously can be more or less detailed.

3. Then after the design part, we get to the construction part — which forms the actual build and the interface between the construction and the client (the person who conceived the idea and put the money into it).

4. Which leads to handover and the part that’s called "in use," and sometimes, "end of life."

That’s the use part of it. Obviously, nowadays we like to extend the life of the building project, as it's a much better utilization of materials, and much better for the planet and everyone around it, to reuse the building rather than to demolish and build a new. With clever engineering and architecture, this can be achieved very easily. Existing buildings can be repurposed — they’re very malleable and can be changed to suit almost anything humanly conceivable. Well, maybe not from a hotel to a nuclear power station, but you get the gist.

And in these four sections — pre-design, design, construction, and use — different countries in the world treat them differently. So in Britain, you obviously have well-defined pre-design stages. In Europe, they’re sort of treated as one whole bunch. The United States does not recognize them at all — neither does Russia or Spain. There is some type of understanding of this part of the process in other countries.

When we get to the design stages of buildings — three main sections in Britain, four in Europe, two in Spain, but generally, they tend to follow a similar approach, and even if there are fewer stages, the amount of information still needs to be delivered in a similar fashion and to a similar level of detail at the end of that section of the process.

Then we get to the construction stage, which sometimes solely concentrates on the act of delivering the actual building — road, bridge, or whatnot — without considering the handover stage of things. But in Britain, there is a handover stage, as there is in the global perspective. However, Russia, New Zealand, and Australia don’t really recognize these stages as important.

Then we have the in-use part, which most countries don’t really bother with — but which is very important. And this part — actually, I’d say — is the most important part of all the others. This part informs us about the building, about the construction, about its use — how good it is, how environmentally sound and sustainable it is throughout its life cycle. This data can then be fed back in to improve the whole process.

Without this one stage, we basically push our project off the production line and forget about it. We don’t care about the client, we don’t care about the impact it has — we just solely concentrate on pushing projects out, pushing buildings out, mostly focused on PR, marketing, and how much money we can all make out of it. When we concentrate on the in-use and end-of-life cycle of the building, we can actually define better buildings for the future.

Most countries do not recognize the end-of-life stage of a building, and neither does the RIBA. However, I would argue that end of use should be considered within the in-use stage. After all, what happens at the end of a building's life is sometimes as important as what happens when it’s in use and when it’s delivered.

Just look at nuclear power stations — how long it takes to plan, construct, operate, and then decommission. How long are these periods? And how costly they are? So I hope you get just a bit of appreciation for how sections of the process are considered differently in Britain and in other parts of the world.

They are a little bit different — but at the end of the day, in all places in the world, they still build buildings. Sometimes to a better definition and better standard than over here. However, looking at the number of British-based design offices and their influence around the world, I think we’re doing something pretty good over here.

The Plan of Work generally goes from Stage 0 — Strategic Definition — through to Preparation and Brief, Stage 2 Concept Design, Stage 3 Developed Design, Stage 4 Technical Design, Stage 5 Construction, Stage 6 Handover and Close Out, and Stage 7 In Use. It's eight stages that define the process in Britain and how we think about it. Having all of that defined is really helpful.

Although, as I mentioned beforehand, when I started in a small practice and I mentioned these Stage 3 reports would be nicely received if we prepared such in our office — I was laughed at. So you can imagine how it all works.

To be honest, with the onset of technology and all the possibilities we’ve got now, we don’t have to go into the minute details of reporting on every single calculation we do or specification — as it's quite standardized nowadays. You’d think that the building project would be well thought through from the word go, all the way to the in-use stage. But that’s not the case.

Most projects under 1 million pounds — things are quite messy from beginning to end. It usually begins with someone going on a whim: "Oh, I’d like a house that has all the bells and whistles — you know, beautiful big glazing, plenty of light, but at the same time energy efficient and smart, with Internet of Things, everything interconnected," and such. A push for the maximum without breaking the bank — but without really knowing how the whole process looks. Without knowing all of those eight stages that usually should be thought about for good definition and good outcomes of the project.

Usually, in most cases of projects under 1 million pounds, you cannot really see these eight stages. They’re mixed up. Sometimes people go a few stages forward — then you find out that you need to redo something else.

I think the easiest example to illustrate that would be a simple project like house extensions — which, in some larger remodelling projects, would go over 1 million pounds — but generally go down to 200,000 or thereabouts.

And there is this weird thinking that the builder who’s been building the same thing for the last 10 years would be best placed to give the advice on the best solution and a way forward. People somehow are reclusive — or rather, reluctant — to invest in a good process and employment of architects, engineers — people who could define the projects they need in better terms. Very often, it's been considered that all of these professionals do is drawings, and anyone can draw a building. And, you know, people sometimes do try to do it on their own — which is very often less successful than they think.

Unfortunately, most of these sorts of projects save on — or rather, cut corners on — good definition in Stages 0 to 4. Then, when it comes to construction at Stage 5, the projects suffer. Projects suffer from a myriad of problems, which are very often cleverly concealed — or maybe not even cleverly concealed.

You see, the people delivering these projects — they're a resourceful bunch. At the end of the day, they just want to get that project done. The easiest way to do so is to push forward.

So, how do you push forward when you’ve got ill-defined projects at the construction stage? Well, you try to find people that do have answers, and you go back to the people who defined the projects. Very often, they are not qualified to design the project to start with — usually architectural designers, people who do indeed concentrate on the appearance of the building, rather than all the building regulations and engineering issues that need to be included as you go and define the project and they try to find answers elsewhere. Most of the time, directions for the delivery of such projects can be found for free online — and they are called Approved Documents. And because they are freely available, people think that just copying the ideas from them is enough.

The sad fact — and sad truth — is that there is a plethora of misunderstanding or misconception about all of the information that's written within those documents. They’re not that easy to read. Even well-versed professionals sometimes struggle to do so.

Nevertheless, so far — before the advent of the Building Safety Act — people were plowing through all those bad designs, all that misinformation, all those poorly understood (and even well-written) regulations that needed to be applied properly to be useful — and to be safe.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is: when the project got to the stage of getting on site, the builder just went on with it — trying to find, you know, some sort of consensus with Building Control. They usually went with a Building Notice, knowing more or less what to do. They were expecting Building Control to come around and correct them whenever needed. Building Control sometimes did. Sometimes didn’t. Some private inspectors were never on site — just receiving some pictures and giving their judgments based on those.

So you see, it's quite messy. And if you don’t know what you’re doing, you may not even see that that’s the problem. Sometimes, when the issues appear, you’ll be brushed away with statements like: “Oh, it wasn’t on the plan, so I made the decision.” But, you know, *we had to plow through — otherwise the boys would stand around doing nothing. So now we need to redo it. Now you need to pay more.” Or: “We need to do this because it wasn’t involved in the plans to start with.”

Well, of course it wasn’t — because it was never approached in the right way.

Many good places that deliver for this type of client usually try to be on the safer side — especially in terms of specification. Because if you don’t go on to be in control of what’s built on the building site, you never know what will actually be built.

From personal experience — and in my professional career, I think I’ve delivered around 450 design projects of varying sizes — on very few occasions, when I went on site, were things actually built according to the specifications.

At the £1 million and below projects, the plans — all of the documentation you prepare — it actually never leaves the van. So I argue: is there even a sense in preparing any of them whatsoever when your contractor most likely won’t use them? Because they will go on their experience, and the way they know how to build buildings.

And that’s fine in many cases — that’s how buildings used to be delivered back in the day. But whether I need to persuade you if it's a wasteful way of doing things or not — well, you may decide for yourself. On your next project if you think of skipping all of those professionals that actually want to help you define and mould your project to be the best it can be — and then ensure it is actually delivered this way, with no corners cut.

When it comes to a slightly bigger projects of over £1 million — or several million pounds — there’s generally enough incentive and client understanding that it will be worthwhile to actually define many things before the more involved design stages begin. There's more time, money, and scope for site investigations on existing buildings that are being changed for use, extended, or have their layout altered.

There's usually a good case for   solution for the project. On such projects, there's generally enough interest to save a lot of money by defining the project well.

Clients often discover that if they are spending that much money, it’s well worth spending 5%, 10%, or even 15% of it to properly evaluate all of the constraints and issues that may arise during construction — such as unforeseen things like soil conditions. With good consultants on board, you’ll be guided through all of the various investigative works that will better inform the project. This allows you to save money, save carbon, and deliver a project that will be successful.

That’s:

1. Being close to the budget,

2. Being efficient, and

3. (Which I think is very, very important) being as close to optimized as possible — and therefore economically and sustainably better.

Alright, so what on Earth is the Plan of Work?

Is it a devious way for the Royal Institute of British Architects to make our lives miserable — making us pay through the roof for consultations and the work of people who spend all of our money on unnecessary processes? Is it just involvement from people who shouldn’t be charging as much for their services?

Or… is it a way of trying to organize and systematize the built environment — a method of defining and delivering building projects in a better way?

Well, hopefully, you'll be able to answer that question by the end of this podcast.

The Plan of Work, as I mentioned earlier, has been in development since 1963, with its first edition. It has undergone several changes over the years — for example, in 1991 and 2007, when the stages of work were expanded. An eighth stage was introduced, called Post-Occupancy Evaluation, which is now referred to as the Use stage.

The plan was updated again in the 2013 edition, with the inclusion of BIM (Building Information Modelling)-related content. Now, in its fifth iteration — the Plan of Work 2020 — it is the one we are currently working with. It serves as the foundation for good project delivery — or at least, as a structured way to view and manage a project more systematically and more effectively.

Look at the life cycle of a construction project, you can generally divide it into four key sections:

• Pre-Design

• Design

• Construction

• Use

Within those broader sections, the RIBA Plan of Work further divides the process.

In the Pre-Design stage, you begin with:

Stage 0 — Strategic Definition

This is the point at which a need arises. Maybe you’re a homeowner who needs an extra bedroom because the family is growing. Maybe you're running a production facility that needs additional space for new machinery or storage. Perhaps the current road system can’t handle the traffic and you need to define a new crossing or bypass — through a section of a city, across a river, or otherwise.

Or, it might simply be a core part of your business model: maybe you’re delivering housing for people to live in, or facilities for people to visit — like hotels or hospitals.

Once you go through Stage 0, you move on to:

Stage 1 — Preparation and Brief

This stage involves assembling all the information required to define your project. You outline all of your expectations. You assemble your team — the people who will help you define these elements — because you may or may not be able to do it alone. You identify the key aspects of your project.

After gathering all of this information, you can then move on to the Design section of the Plan of Work.

This begins with:

Stage 2 — Concept Design,

and continues through to

Stage 4 — Technical Design.

Stage 2 is where you explore ideas. You come up with design concepts and possible solutions. You think about what sort of building you want to create, how many storeys it will have, and what kind of layout it will need.

You’re trying to define — trying to mould — your idea into a tangible, visual expression. You're putting it onto paper so that everyone can understand and evaluate it.

It's not only about writing about things now — it's about defining them. Following the concept stage design, you move into spatial coordination, where all of the different parts of the design team come together, trying to put the building — sometimes apart, when it’s an old one — and then reassemble it in the right way. Or simply to put all of the aspects of the building together so they do not collide with one another, so all of the aspects of the building can live happily together, and so the building is safe and usable.

At this stage, it really isn't now all about making the building the most economical possible. However, very often at that stage, the tender documents are sent over, and when they come back, the client realizes they don’t have enough money to cover the project. So it comes back to the drawing board to be re-evaluated and redone.

Once you're happy to move forward, and you're sort of sure that there’s enough money, there’s enough design, and that everyone is happy with that design — including the planning office — you can move forward to technical design, and close all of the other aspects of the building project: all of the more minute details that are safety-critical and will need to form part of the building regulation submission.

Obviously, there are more legal requirements and such, but I’ll talk about those in my following podcast, where I’ll be taking each and every single one of these stages apart so you can appreciate it in more detail and in all different types of projects and scenarios.

Once that’s done, you can move on to manufacturing and construction, which is Stage 5 — as it says on the tin. At that stage, the heavy machinery, all of the people, and all of the dust are being raised as the building is being built, or the construction project is being delivered.

At that stage, there shouldn’t be much design work to be done. But yet again — going back to my previous points — usually, on buildings under £1 million, there still will be plenty of design to be done, which hasn’t been covered by anyone beforehand, and there will be a lot of problems with it. But it shouldn’t be. They should be specialized items — maybe staircases, railings, and auxiliary architectural elements — that are being designed at this stage and coordinated with the rest of the design team.

But following this technical design, it all should be already true and well put in place before the construction. On some projects, it still may not be — as I say — but yeah, I’ll talk about that a little bit more when I put that into a separate podcast.

Then, following the construction, we get to Stage 6 — Handover and Close Out, which generally involves completing the construction works and handing over the building to the person who’s paying for it — to the client — ensuring all the necessary documents are in place and handed over to the client.

In simple buildings, there are not many of them that need to be handed over. But on more complex ones, there is a plethora of documents — sometimes including BIM, sometimes including clones of the buildings in the Building Information Model — that contain most or all of this information for future management of the building, and to make sure that the building is ready for occupation.

There’s time for snagging, to check and fix any issues that could have arisen, or may not have been done the way they should have been done. But this generally should be small and easy to handle.

And then we go to Stage 7 — In Use, which I claim to be the most important part of it. As you know, throughout the centuries of human existence, we've been building billions of buildings and construction projects — but not much of the feedback ever came back from it.

And nowadays, I think we should realize the wealth of knowledge and data storage, and use that to inform our choices for the future.

That generally ends Stage 7 — In Use. It generally ends the consideration, monitoring of the building and its performance — seeing what sort of issues arise from use of that building, including change of use during use.

It’s very often that a building made as an office can become a hotel, can become a hospital, can become all sorts of other things during its lifetime — can become flats, and so on.

And how was that building, and its layout — how useful was it the way it’s been originally built and designed — for all of those changes? And how did that look like?

The feedback is very, very, very important — including the feedback from occupants, and all of the sensors that could be placed in the building as well, to inform us in future.

I've said that the stages go from Stage 0 to Stage 0, and now I'll explain to you why. Volume Stage 7 — In Use — if we don't go back with all of that feedback to Stage 0 to define better standards, we won't use this feedback and won't develop better standards.

Check that against what we do in the office — how we approach building design and construction. All of that information, although thought about, will be lost. And unfortunately, on very many occasions, that still is the case. Only the best offices that charge adequately can do that.

As you see, not many clients see much of the use in paying for Stage 7, as it is very often their first project in life — and most likely the last one. So they don't really care how evaluation of that building will feed into the design and delivery of the next one.

However, it will, and being short-sighted in this stage — not involving that in your business, in your design, and building operation — it's not only costing you money in the long run and costing clients, it's also costing the actual client or the next client, and the environment, as you're not drawing the right conclusions from the whole process. And again, you're allowing the whole process to lay wasted.

And I think that's — that's — that's very important. And that's why we — we haven't really... well, not only that. 'Cause, you know, the whole process is very fragmented. And there are different specialisms and different stakeholders that actually take part in the definition, design, construction, handover, and management of the building. There are many people and many, many organizations involved, usually, in these sorts of circumstances.

But — but it's very important to contractually have access to all of that information, all of that data, and to feed that back to the operation of your own office, whatever you do. Otherwise, however smart we are, however clever our AI solutions will be, they will not be that clever at all if that data won't be fed back into the model — whether that is your business operational model or your AI model.

Now, how should the process look like? Well, it is a tough one. It is a tough one because there are so many different projects, there are so many different needs and businesses. However, I believe — I am a firm believer — that the project should begin with Stage 0, using all of the input gathered throughout the existence of one business or one practice, and fit all of that into the advice for a client at Stage 0.

Stage 0 and Stage 1 — both of these stages — they're non-design stages. These stages are stages to define the project. Define the need. Asking the question: whether a building project or a construction project is the solution for the needs and for the problem. Sometimes it may not be.

Or, sometimes the project may be the case — maybe the need of the business or the individual — but the place and the scope of it, and the feasibility for the delivery of it, won't allow it to happen and may need to be re-evaluated. And this can be defined at Stage 0.

It's a very important stage — in my opinion, the most experienced and clever offices should take part in this stage. And the client shouldn't shy away from reaching out to appropriate individuals or firms to become part of their decision-making process — especially when your project is one of a kind, or your project is your first one and likely the last one, or the second or third. If you're not doing that day in, day out, you will soon find out that no matter how much of the internet you browse through, Google won't have all of the answers. And soon, the Excel spreadsheet will stop making sense when you get to the next stages of it.

And at this part — this part of it — if you’ve got the right people at the right place, you can rest assured that the next steps will be the steps that you want to take.

And if you do realize that a building project is the answer, you can move to Stage 1, where you can evaluate it a little bit further — where your advisers can tell you all the parts and things that need to be considered, including taking the site you’ve got, and how you're going to deliver the project.

If you want, think about how you're going to deliver the project — including, you know, site delivery, site organization, logistics. I'm not saying the nitty-gritty of it, but in general — it can influence, it can make or break your project, or rather, make or break your bank, if you decide wrongly how to approach it at this stage.

At this stage, you should be informed about all of the things that you should do.

I think a good parallel here would be to compare this stage to the purchase decision process — when you need to buy something, right? You realize there is a need for it. Then you need to educate yourself about what sort of solutions are out there. And that’s where your advisers come in with their experience and specialist knowledge.

Once you choose one of the ways forward, you can dive a little bit deeper. You find information on how to deal with all of the other aspects of it. You get all of the people involved who could help you with this.

Now, this could also be things I mentioned — how to deliver the project, what sort of budget you can work with, what will be the approach to sustainability of that project, what sort of materials could be used, what sort of materials are available near you. If you are quite remote and there are no concrete works nearby, how are you going to deliver it? Does it make sense to actually bring salon over — or perhaps you meant cement or silane? — and mix it on site? Or maybe get pre-done elements and modularize the whole build? Or maybe use timber solutions? Or steel?

You see, there are all sorts of different aspects that can be — and should be — looked into at this stage.

Once that’s done, you can move into the concept design stage. And you'll find out — and also find out in the preparation of the brief stage — it may transpire that the project is actually a little bit over budget after all. So, you may need to go back to the strategic definition and re-evaluate your needs, make some concessions, then go back to the preparation and brief. And once all that’s set in stone, move into the employment of the design team — your architects, engineers, M&E engineers, and such.

From there, it gets to the design stage of the plan of work, which consists of three stages: Concept Design, Spatial Coordination, and Technical Design, consecutively Stages 2, 3, and 4.

Here at the Concept Design, you start drawing, start molding all of the expectations, taking into consideration all of the feasibility studies and project briefs. You get the idea of how the project should look. And if you defined the brief well, this shouldn’t be much of a problem — because it's pretty much putting that brief, those realistic expectations, into conceptual designs, models, and preliminary specifications.

The design stages here are again iterative, because you’ll get to the Concept Design stage, set your layouts, general look of things — the general look of the building or construction project, or whatever you're doing, whether it be a bridge or a tunnel. Then you get to your Spatial Coordination, where you need to work out with other designers how to put all of those things together, so you can actually use the space the way you intended to in the first place.

And at this point, it may transpire that there are some problems — that you may not be able to use the space the way you wanted. And that indeed may cause issues. This Spatial Coordination part may return an “error message,” if you like, which will say: “Okay, we need to get back to Concept Design now because something's wrong.”

For example, there’s a column in the middle of the room, and we wanted to have a bed over there. But taking the layout into account — if we take that column away, we could build another few rooms. So if you want to think about changing the layout, you’ll pay through the roof to push it without this column. And whether that makes sense or not — if you don’t have time now to go back to the Concept Design stage, and from that concept design maybe go back a stage further to vary the brief — then you begin the downward spiral of wasteful design behavior and specification.

So now would be the time to go back to the Concept Design, change it, and iterate it back into Spatial Coordination. And if that works well, move it forward to Stage 4 — ironing out all of the details.

You see, you may have a column — a column shown on that drawing — in the middle of the room, as I said, now you've changed the layout and that column is hidden within the room. But when it comes to the technical design, it transpired that the connection of this column to the beam will stick out from the ceiling. So, you need to either think about how to change it so the connection is different and is not seen in the ceiling, or make the ceiling lower, or embellish it in some different way. That’s technical design.

Once all of that’s done, you can move into manufacturing. There shouldn’t be much design happening at that stage. As I mentioned before — and as is rarely the case — usually those definitions are quite messy, but in the ideal circumstance, you should have all of the information ready to go. Once you’re there, only some issues might arise during the works — mistakes made by people on-site, or miscommunication between specifications, drawings, and the people executing the works. These will need to be rectified. Or maybe the design will need to be slightly changed so that the mistake isn’t that bad of a circumstance after all.

And that’d be it. Obviously, there will still be design — but design on the temporary works side of things. You need to think about how to deliver the building safely. So, as you construct the building, you need to think: how do we do this safely? In what sort of stages? You need to plan it.

When you get to the construction stage — Stage 5 — it is pretty much too late to vary the design. If you need to vary the design at this stage, you usually have 2, 3, 5, 10, 20 people already on site. If you stop at that point and send things back to the designers, and they have to coordinate everything and send it back to you, and you have 2, 3, 4, 5 weeks or even two weeks of standing around — imagine what sort of cost that is for the construction crew, for the main contractor.

It’s not really a case of bad design. It’s not really a case of being too quick and going into construction without having all of the information ready. It’s usually the worst practice ever. However, sometimes projects are long-winded or overly complicated, but you still need to start as quickly as possible. So, the design and construction stages may interact with each other — but they should still be done on a staged basis. One stage or part of the building should be closed and ready to go for construction, with all documentation complete, before the next one is issued — so we can address any issues as they arise.

That would be it.

Following the manufacturing and construction stages, we reach the moment when the building is either finished or approaching completion. At this point, you start collecting all of the documents, all of the information about the building, conducting all of the surveys done by the client — hopefully to prove that you’ve done a good job. But very often, they’re trying to prove there’s so much snagging that they need to retain part of the money until you make it right.

The manufacturing, construction, and handover stages usually overlap a little bit at the end of the project. From there, you get into the use and evaluation of the building as it stands — which is a vital part of the whole building process, but is often neglected, skipped, or not considered when quoting for professional services, making the whole process that much poorer in definition.

So how should the process look?

We go from strategic definition — finding out what we need to build, what we want to build. Then we go to Stage 1, preparing the brief, preparing all of the information required — including budget, plans, construction stages, envisaged construction methods, etc.

We get to the Concept Stage. From there, once we know what we want to build, we go into Spatial Coordination. If everything’s fine, we move to Technical Design. If not, we return to Concept Design, and sometimes even back to the brief if need be. Then we take that and go back into Concept Design again, and re-iterate into Spatial Coordination.

From there, we go to Technical Design, which sometimes requires going back to Spatial Coordination, Concept Design, and even the brief. But that should be less of an issue, as people at the early stages should already be more or less aware of what will happen at the Technical Design stage, and should try to design out any issues that could arise at that point.

From there, all of the documentation, specifications, and contracts are completed with the main contractor.

In Stage Five, the contractor manufactures and builds the project for us and hands it over. Once the project is handed over to you — to the client — you’ve got to, with the help of professionals, gather information about the use of that building throughout its lifetime.

So, you see, it’s pretty simple — as you could expect at the very beginning. It is easy: well, you just want to build a building. You design it, you build it, you use it — that’s done. But in truth, taking into consideration how many people, how many different practices and organizations are involved in defining the need, defining the brief, defining the design, and constructing the building — and how then people are using it, or reusing it, or changing the use of it — it becomes all that much more complicated.

And it’s very important that, at the end of it all, we can draw out lessons and apply them back into the process again. So, with little and incremental improvements, we can make the process better.

As you see, it’s hard to define it straight away. But thinking about construction, building development, or construction initiatives holistically — and thinking about the process like mana, in a process like a loop — I’d say we can make the industry and the approach a little bit better, year after year.

And who knows — maybe after another several thousand years we’ll finally get there, and be on par with manufacturers. But perhaps this will come with the advent of all-encompassing consulting offices, rather than disjointed crews. Or maybe software that will join us all together. Only time will tell.

🎵 Thank you very much for listening.

I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I hope it wasn’t too long for you to listen through all of that — maybe it was a little bit too much — but in the next podcast, I will come back to it. I’ll quickly recap it then, and concentrate on every single stage of the Plan of Work — the RIBA Plan of Work 2020 — so it will slowly start to make sense as we go.

Today, we talked about how things look in general — in the world and in Britain. How the process looks like on smaller projects costing less than £1 million. How things generally look on projects more expensive than £1 million — up to £5 or £10 million. What the Plan of Work is, and its stages. A brief history of its development. And then, how the process should look.

I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Thank you for sticking around till the very end. I hope you’ve enjoyed the content. I intend to carry on in this way — having simple conversations about the difficult topics of construction.

I appreciate not many people may be familiar with the idea of the Plan of Work, and how to apply it to a project. Therefore, I will continue in the following podcasts, concentrating on each particular stage of work as defined in the RIBA Plan of Work 2020, giving you some personal perspective — which I hope you’ll find useful.

If you have suggestions or topics that you’d like to hear me chat about, I want to know. Let’s have the conversation that you care about.

If you are an industry professional and would like to share your take on the industry, or share your expertise with the things you’re involved in, I’ll gladly have a coffee with you and record our conversation for the listeners to benefit from.

For now, that’s it. Toodloo!

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Piotr Bytnar BEng (Hons) MSc CEng MIStructE

Chartered Structural Engineer who deals with the Architecture of buildings. His Master's Studies led him to an in-depth understanding of risk and contract arrangements in construction as well as specialist knowledge in soil mechanics.

He and his team help homeowners and property developers to design and deliver construction projects reducing waste in time and the cost. He believes that the construction project is an iterative process that can be well managed and it is best managed if all the aspects of the project definition and management are dealt with in-house or coordinated by one organisation. His team works to all stages of RIBA and ISTRUCTE stages of work and enables contractors to deliver projects on-site providing risk evaluations, methodologies for execution of works and temporary works designs.

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