EPISODE: 003 - STAGE 1 - PREPARATION AND BRIEF
- Piotr Bytnar BEng (Hons) MSc CEng MIStructE
- Nov 5, 2024
- 19 min read
Updated: Jun 4
BYTNAR - TALKS
EPISODE 003 - STAGE 1 - PREPARATION AND BRIEF
This episode is for people who want to know more about the process of project design and delivery.
If you ask yourself questions:
What is to be built – the type of building, the form of the building, size of the building, material, and way e.g. (MMC)?
What is the budget and what can be done with it?
What is the site and what can be done on it?
What are the sustainability credentials?
What are the risks? What team members are needed?
What information is required in what detail?
BIM and if who will manage, to what Level of Definition?
What is the envisaged project program?
What is the envisaged project execution plan?
What are the planning constraints? – Nutrient neutrality, Biodiversity, local idiosyncrasy and vernacularity.
Should we start pre-planning discussions?
Should we start to engage local people and groups of interest?
Should I start thinking about CDM obligations and begin the process of collation of the Health and Safety File?
Is the project feasible? What will be the procurement Strategy?
This episode should give you a broad idea of how to start the consideration of an Architecture Engineering or Construction project and why it is worth paying attention at this stage.
This is Bytnar Talks, The Engineer Takes on Construction, Episode Three.
Hi, I'm Piotr Bytnar. Each day I help my clients plan and design building projects through Bytnar Limited, a consulting chartered-structural-engineers practice. My biggest passion, and the cornerstone on which I've built my business, is find finding clever solutions for construction projects. I am a chartered structural engineer and a budding software developer, so you can rest assured that I will strive to talk about the best practices and the use of new technologies in the industry, and, 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 Stage 1: Preparation and Brief. [Music]
Hello everyone, welcome to Bytnar Talks, where your host takes you on the mammoth task of improving the construction industry one podcast at a time. Well, at least that is my goal and the purpose of my podcast. I want to tell you, my lovely audience, how things look like from the perspective of a person who loves the industry—the inventiveness and resilience of people within it—but things we could do so much better, and that our action shouldn't be determined by the legislation but by best interest of all stakeholders.
By “interest” I do not mean money; the currency that operates in my office, and the one I tend to gospel about left, right, and centre, are the principles of squin square—that's sustainability, necessity, quality, and improvement. In my view, the project needs to have at least three of these qualities to be realistically worthwhile. It may not be sustainable, but, if it's needed and it's of a good quality and will improve the current situation, we think it's a good project to go ahead with. Obviously, the best way forward would be in every single case to have a sustainable project on our books, but truth be told it's not always the case.
Another week has passed, and I'm becoming more confident in the creation of this podcast. The post-processing becomes smoother, and your face-to-face feedback steers me in the right direction, I hope. Well, at least I start to appreciate the process more—its constraints in terms of the breadth and depth of discussed matters, and my lack of skill of storytelling. My promise to you, dear listener, is that I will strive to improve that side of things with coming-up episodes.
The last episode concentrated on the first stage of the process called Strategic Definition, one of the two pre-design stages of the Plan-of-Work process—the birth moment of your project and the decision to move forward with it. I emphasised how important that part of the process is and that it is paramount to engage with experienced consultants to inform on this decision. Unless you are a hotel chain or a property magnate, it is unlikely you'll have enough skill and knowledge to do it on your own, and, sure, if you're short on money but long on time—like anything else in this life—you might try to figure it out on your own or call your local friendly multidisciplinary office like Bytnar or chance it, like the most. There you have it; I hope you like my—maybe not so subtle—product placement.
Now I trust you would much more prefer me start talking about the topic of this podcast, so, without further ado, let's get to it. [Music]
This episode is about Stage 1: Preparation and Brief.
Remember, Stage 1 isn't the first stage in the process; it's a second stage of the pre-design part of Plan of Work. The whole process begins with Stage 0, Strategic Definition, that I treated about in the last episode, and it's important to realise that the whole process starts from Stage 0—like in computer science, most of the lists, well, lists generally, they start from zero, the counting of them starts from zero and then carries on forward.
So, Stage 1. What I—in this podcast I'll tell you what it's all about. I'll briefly mention the preparation part of it, which is like going into a research, like going on a research trip, to find out what, why, who, how, and when. Then we move to Brief, which combines all of the information gathered during the preparation phase to inform how the project should go ahead and whether the way we want to approach it, the approach for the definition of it, is aligned with what clients actually need and want. It is a live document that will be developed in the further stages, but it is the first—it is a strategy to move forward; it is a document that shows that what, why, who, how, and when. There's plenty of things to consider within this stage, so I will briefly mention most of them. I'll skip over most of them, as it would be material for an entire podcast to treat about any single one of them, so you can appreciate it would be too much.
I've tried to talk about too many things in my first podcast, and that wasn't received that well, so I'd rather just let you know about the parts that are important but quickly move forward to hopefully be able to paint the picture of the whole stage rather than going into the nitty-gritty of the process. I will likely treat more about one of those parts in more detail, and most likely in subsequent podcasts that will be specifically designed to target every single one of them.
Why bother? Well, it is a good question—why be? After all, you can just go on and do the building, right? Yeah, sort of. To illustrate you better why it is important to do it, as with any endeavour really, if you don't have a strategy for it, you will struggle and you will not really know why you failed or why it was a success, so it's good to know—good to put that down and make it visual, and make the strategy, make the brief available to everyone that will be involved in the project, as there will be then less scope for misinterpretation and going the wrong way and wasting resources.
So I'll tell you about two stories that I think paint the picture just—just well. One will be about the house builders, Georgie and Diana and the baby, and I'll talk about the project manager, Steve Smartass (has it all, done it all) worked as Manager of Thamed Water, seen the work of best offices, knows better than everyone else—so what can go wrong there? I think I'll, yeah, I'll point out what in several minutes time. [Music]
So we know now that you want to build, we know what sort of project we want to build and, the general direction from the employer. Now it's time to go out there, get the right consultants in place, and start assembling the design team—or, even before the design team, let's assemble the team that can inform the best way forward with the design team later on. Let's find out whether the project is feasible, let's find out all of the—let's do all of the feasibility studies that may need to be included to inform the next stages a little bit better. Let's get that structural-engineering in place and advice on what sort of building is buildable to the constraints and opportunities of that particular site.
Now, once we have all of those information in, you can move on into putting all of that into a legal document called the Brief, on which everyone else will be building their information packages. See, the things to consider, to be included within the brief, will vary from the project to the project, but generally there are these that I will mention now. I managed to seesixteen points, really, which I think are quite important and the parts that are usually needed on any given project, and these are:
What is it to be built—what type of the building it is, what form of building it is, what size of the building can we build within the budget we've got, what material we can use, what materials are available to us, in what way we want to build it—whether we want to do it cast-in, framed method of construction, modularise it, or what else. That's the great place for the structural engineer to kick in and inform on a lot of these questions indeed.
What is the budget for all of it? It is the biggest constraint of any project. You may want to build a hotel, but you may have budget for twenty rooms, not for fifty or even twenty-two, so it's very important to be realistic with your budgets and put the boundaries on how far we want to push that budget to, because the further you push it, the more risk is involved.
What is the site? Is it on a slope, is it on a quagmire, is it by the river, is it on a hill; where is it; is orography of the site important?
What are the sustainability credentials for that particular project: what way we want to approach it, whether we want to go for the passive net-zero building, or maybe energy-plus building, or maybe something completely different; what type of certification or accreditation will stick—going to be LEED, BREEAM, anything else.
What are the risks associated with the project—that will be budget and whether we can meet the standards to deliver, whether there's health-and-safety risk involved, and others.
What team members are needed to collect all of that information, and to list them down and put them down in a matrix of responsibility, clearly stating who is responsible for what.
What information is required and to what detail.
Many often you have engineering designs that are just conceptual and then you have to take it further and do more, and think about the project in detail whether are you going to use beam and if you will who will manage it and to what level of definition.
What is the envisaged project programme—when do you want to do which part and accomplish which part. Some parts may drag for too long if you don't give it a deadline you know we can we can try to make the best building possible and never build it
What is the envisaged project-execution plan—how we're going to build the actual building, taking the constraints on the site and the chosen way of construction, and if that's reasonable or not. If we don't know it at this stage we may be pushing for solutions that will be ill defined and won't be able to economically and safely execute them on site
What are the planning constraints—whether we are impacted by nutrient-neutrality bill or biodiversity, what are the local idiosyncrasies and vernacularity that will influence how the building can be positioned and how the building will cooperate, how the building will work in the background of the existing town, existing site, existing surroundings.
Shall we start pre-planning discussion with the planning office? If it's a bigger project, it may be prudent to start the engagement at the very beginning of the whole process. If we don't know how it sits with the local planning office it will be difficult to go through all of those hoops that they may throw our way.
Engage local people and groups of interest to see what's needed in the area, how this needs can be addressed within the budget and within the constraints of the budget and whether we can enhance the local area peoples and groups of interests cases. But we can address them some way, that will improve the life of the people in and around the project.
Start thinking about the health and safety of that project—thinking CDM regulations and the obligation it puts on us; if it's a big project it is the time now to start creating the Health & Safety File.
If the project is actually feasible, looking at all of those studies and information we already gathered going through planning, seeing what sort of structure can be built, whether there is enough skill in the area to deliver that on the planning scope and delivery scope and what it's feasible to actually build.
How we're going to approach the procurement of that given project.
These are all sixteen points that can make or break any given project, and we don't really have to think about every single one of them in big detail, but failing to observe any given one can make or break the project. And these are not, by any means, exhaustive list of things to be considered, but these are generally the basics that should be thought of before you put the first shovel in the ground, or even before you start putting the first lines on paper trying to find the best solution for a given Brief. [Music]
So why bother—that's quite a silly question here, isn't it, thinking that there's at least sixteen points that you should look at. Indeed, if you're not a property magnate of any sort, you may not be aware of any of these given things, and it will be tough and difficult to find all of the answers about any of those points, and, taking there's more points that can be—or that need to be—thought about before you start appointing design teams and all of the people that will define the project and build it, if you don't have a proper brief in place and you don't put that down and show it in black and white, it is open for interpretation from every given side, and, very often—more often than not—it is a massive waste of time and resources down the line. And I think I'll be able to show you that in two stories I got prepared for you.
The first one is about a young family—it's George and Diana, Georgie and Diana. They are a couple in their thirties—young, healthy professionals owning their own house, with manageable mortgage on it, with good careers, and now with baby on board—in the oven. Now they realise that they will need some more space.
…And, by the way, the story is true; it is taken from one of the experiences we had in the office, but all of the details are changed, so if you see yourself in that description—in that story—you know whom I’m talking about if you dealt with us. I think this type of story is quite universal and crosses county-line borders, if you like.
So George and Diana need more space. They think that a loft-conversion addition will be the great solution and that it will actually allow them to utilise this space. They live in a typical terraced house—two-storey terraced house with two bedrooms on the first storey, living-room and kitchen downstairs, and the loft, which is unused and cold. They think that, if they change that, they could spare one room for the baby; the second one can remain as an office (as it is now, a home office), and then they can move upstairs to have the beautiful bedroom they dream about—en-suite with all amenities, with a nice overlook of neighbouring gardens.
Although, taking savings plus a mortgage (as they need to remortgage to afford the house), they embark on the process of educating themselves on the process. No one tells them about a Structural Plan of Work—or Plan of Work per se. Most professional bodies will align their advice with the Plan of Work, but, the truth be told, not many actual professionals are involved in designing and managing this type of project, so they embark on educating themselves. They find whatever information they can—Google, Bing, or Safari (I don’t know; I don’t have a device in the Apple ecosystem). They visit architects’ websites and blogs, join Facebook groups, buy a few design magazines, and read them through, and they start dreaming of a bedroom with an en-suite.
After several weeks of deciding what they want and what they don’t want, how much it would more or less cost—reading websites and listening to Facebook comments—they decide they’re educated enough and ready for some action. Then they send out ten e-mails asking for a quotation for planning drawings, as they fall under the impression anyone can do initial drawings; then you need an engineer who will do the calculation report for steels, and you can approach builders to quote and move things forward. They choose nearly the cheapest quote, seeing lovely pictures of projects on the website. The architectural designer, named Agnes, is a lovely lady who comes in to measure the house, take pictures, and talk about their equirements. She says the loft extension is under permitted-development rights, so no need for planning.
With the general-arrangement plans they approach an engineer recommended by one of the builders who came in to quote on the architectural plans only. They get the report, employ the builder, and the builder gets cracking with the build. After six months from the initial realisation of need, they enjoy their new space.
After a couple of months they receive a letter from the local planning officer saying the dormer extension is not PD and will need to go through planning or risk an enforcement notice. This brings dread and insurmountable amounts of stress on the couple and the poor Diana in her late months of pregnancy. They decide, first, to engage with the planning officer to take advice. When they consult the planning officer it transpires that they may also need a sign-off certificate from Building Control, and they are told that there is no paper trace of the building on the system.
Now they employ Bytnar to advise on the matters. We take them through the planning process and manage to secure retrospective planning permission, but the amount of work required to regularise Building Control—including localised strengthening of structure, fire-proofing the junction between houses, insulation, assuring there is enough provision for fire escape, and enough head-room to discharge access requirements of Building Regulations—not to mention the space is cramped, and there is no room for an en-suite in the first place.
You ask about the Facebook designer Agnes, the builder, and the engineer? Now no one picks up the phone or replies to letters. The builder is dissolved, and the engineer was just a name— not registered with any professional institution whatsoever.
After several years, plenty of stress, and living in uncertainty in a non-sellable, non-insured house, the rectification now approaches nearly half of the initial project cost. This is a disaster— a disaster on a personal level of the worst kind. The family will be living with this situation for the rest of their life, and they will struggle financially for the next half-decade, if not more.
So—“Why bother?” again. After all, I’m a great project manager, and that brings us to story number two:
Steve – the Project Manager [Music]
I’ve received an e-mail, out of nowhere, from a Google account, asking whether we’re interested, as Bytnar Limited, in providing a structural and civil-engineering design package for the project. A long list of expectations follows that e-mail from the word go. After an exchange of e-mails—and my explanation that building projects are a two-way street and I need, first, to find out if the projects are properly defined, if there is enough money for professional services, who is involved in the project, who is the architect, who is the project manager, who is the contractor, and what the procurement route here. You know, the basic things that expose whether the prospective client is ready to collaborate with you on the project or not likely. There is no point producing a pamphlet of recommendations, past projects, insurance information, and any of these things without knowing all of those details; if you do, you don’t know whom you’re sharing information with—that’s first. Secondly, it doesn’t make sense to waste money where this is not going anywhere; it’s just one of hundreds of e-mails to anyone, fishing for as much information as possible.
That’s the first stage—how we usually qualify our leads. The scheme, it transpires, is a £1.6-million scheme for the construction of several three-storey terraced houses on a two-way sloping site, with lower ground floor, back garden, and a street-front light-well entrance at street level (that’s ground level). I’ve received several hundred pages of reports, planning drawings, basement-impact assessments, and such for my perusal. I take an hour of my time to go through all of those documents—especially intrigued that, in the initial e-mail, the gentleman, Steve, asks for building impact assessments when he already has two, but both of them are silly ones to the eye of well-versed and grounded professionals: they were done only for the sake of discharging planning-permission enquiries. I always, in this sort of circumstance, ask why.
That’s already wasted money for two different reports from two different soil-engineering companies, without any good information you can actually base design on. That’s several thousand pounds wasted—where a well-versed chartered structural and/or civil engineer could just provide a brief report or simple statement of confidence that the project can be done, given the circumstances. There’s already a chain of terraced houses—right to the left of that, lower down the slope, and to the right of it, up the slope—so, with great confidence… it’s hard to say something is not working when you see it being built upon in the same way, and it is working. Anyway that comes with experience and the way of approaching things.
If you do not have the right professionals at this stage, you end up going out and paying for all of the information that’s unnecessary. So I e-mail back, saying the project is not well defined, that we will gladly do it, but these are our preliminary terms. I issue this to the lovely gentleman. I receive an e-mail back from a person who felt that his character was blemished, with the e-mail reading something like, “How dare you say the project is not well defined! I am a seasoned professional, work with the best of the best of the best in the industry, and it is I who will dictate conditions, contracts, and approaches.” Well, it goes without saying that we decline participation in this collaboration.
The client learns nothing new and will go on to spend fees on unnecessary work—if he finds people who will just push the design out for him to execute. This is typical for an ignorant or cocky approach, especially if the only aspect of the project-manager’s experience is to deliver on instructions and not take a creative part in the project definition and actual creation of the brief. If you don’t see the benefit of this part of the project, then you cannot blame such an individual for not understanding what sort of trouble lies further down the line. It’s just what it is. And we need these sorts of project managers who simply push the paperwork, ensure everything is in place, and just build what they’ve been told—whether that’s by the best offices in the world or a simple family-run engineering business.
Now, for both stories it is too late for Stage 1 to come about. It is obvious the preparation has been flawed and the brief either non-existent or ill-defined. The damage to family life and finances, as a result of such an approach, is insurmountable, as I said previously. And building those houses the way that cocky Steve approaches it will be wasteful. So you see: on one side we have damage to family life and finances; on the other side we have wasteful construction. In the first story, the damage is apparent; in the second, the damage is hidden. This type of hidden damage usually comes with headlines that buildings—especially massive, government-led builds—are over-budget. After all, the best are designing these buildings, and they know how to protect their interests. If no one wants to pay for the proper definition and proper participation in the whole process, they deliver as much as they can for the risks they can accommodate, and all the rest of the cost is pushed onto the taxpayer—well, that’s me and you.
Unfortunately, none of these stories is a positive one. Ill-defined or non-existent processes very rarely end on a positive note; they usually end in disasters or in unnecessary expenditure—whether that’s environmental or financial. You can appreciate how complex this world can be. These two stories—one about Georgie and Diana, and the second about cocky Steve—are a drop in the ocean of possible screw-ups. Unfortunately, this type of scenario is all too common. As much as I enjoy helping these people and families out of the quagmire, I would rather see projects delivered well from the word go. It is pretty startling to know that anyone can design and execute your building: no licence required, no hard stops for typical buildings. Luckily, these tragedies are usually financial, but financial difficulties cause relationship degradation—often leading to suicides. So be careful out there. It is a perilous world, and there’s not enough information to prepare you for it. Well-versed professionals are very often lost and exposed only to a particular part of that world, and not many of us see the bigger picture.
It does not cost much to receive the right advice before you start. Somehow, it is one of the easiest budget-cuts that people make. But if you consider several hundred pounds a lot for advice on a small project—say, £50–150 k—or several thousand on larger schemes over £1 m, then you either do not have enough money to move forward or you are looking for savings in the wrong places. In either case—stop. [Music]
But, if you want to do your own research, I will always send you to the British institutions that offer a lot of free advice. If you do want to do your own research, it’s always a great idea to start on the RIBA website or the IStructE website and use their free resources. That includes finding your local engineer or local architect—both can help you with your project. For better or worse, combined, they can make magic happen. For the initial conversation you can always call Bytnar for 15 minutes’ free advice, or you can book a 30 minute paid advice slot, send us material, and we can talk about the actual issue at hand. There’s also a booking section available with our curated service packs—whether that be for architectural-and-engineering, just engineering, or survey-type services. But it all starts with Initial Advice and then can go much, much further. You will find all the details on the Bytnar website; just go to the booking section.
I would also like to let you know about the newest RIBA publication, in collaboration with IStructE and the Association of Collaborative Design. As I’ve been recording this podcast they released a brilliant publication that ties local engagement with the Plan of Work—that means bringing local people in to advise and inform on the needs of locals.
So that’s that for today. Thank you very much for listening. I hope you’ve enjoyed listening to it as much as I’ve enjoyed preparing it for you. If you think it is worth your while, I encourage you to subscribe and comment under this episode. Reach out to me on LinkedIn and comment under my posts. Let us talk and let our voice carry—it will carry further and enhance our conversation when you subscribe, like, and comment.
I understand that you may not give this podcast much hope; after all, the online statistics are ruthless—they say that, last year, 90 % of podcasts did not publish more than three episodes, and the remaining 90 % did not go over the twentieth-episode mark. Well, I like to be at the top, so you can expect at least twenty-one episodes from me. Frankly, I’m doing it for you, and it also improves me as a speaker and helps my thoughts come out more freely in the way I express them—what’s not to like? Even if there is only one person ever listening to this episode, I think it will be worth it, as any conversation I ever have, face-to-face with anyone else, is.
Do not be afraid. No specialist or expert has all the answers or sees any given situation or problem in the right way. It is the directed effort of many people and discussions that bring about beautiful and successful projects, as well as make our lives better.
Thank you for listening. Please voice your opinions—I want to hear from you.
Toodloo!
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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