An insider's take on 'A Leap of Faith'

[Andrew Fisher]

I had to armwrestle my way into the Tuesday afternoon session 'A Leap of Faith: How integrated Practice Facilitates Innovative Design'. There weren't any chairs available, and I was in need of a power outlet for note-taking purposes. After stealing a chair from the adjoining room and getting set up to take notes I quickly realized that many of the project details were already buried in my subconscious.

You see, I've heard the names Tom, Frances and Jenna many times before in connection with the Palomar West project. In a parallel effort at Anshen + Allen I have spent two years working on the nearby Pomerado Hospital for the same client. (and facilitiated by CO Architects) Inpatient Healthcare projects in California require massive coordination efforts, years of design development and frequently include full-scale mockups of key spaces such as patient rooms.

I've not done healthcare design prior to joining Anshen + Allen, so my exposure is limited to one overall healthcare design philosophy. and take it from me, the lessons I have learned were applied elegantly in the design of Palomar West.

In particular, the Diagnosis and Treatment spaces were made very effective due to the 'column-less' spaces. And those were made possible by the many layers of structure overhead (to support both high tech medical spaces and the roof garden) The details here were worked out with models, and would have been much harder to implement in more traditional documentation methods.

There is a discrete morphology that must be applied in hospitals -- certain adjacencies to be maintained between a series of functional spaces. Finding a right arrangement has been an ongoing challenge, but here the layout is deceptively simple. These adjacent functions offer the right services in the right proximity, with repetition of like elements, such as the 'handed' patient rooms that Frances discussed.

To hear the story of Revit implementation on the project, one would think that the team succeeded in spite of their BIM platform -- even the fastest workstations weren't capable of working with model files, at least until users were given additional computers for mundane tasks like checking email. The software was pushed beyond it's limits in Schematic Design, and MEP models were not working together with Architectural and Structural models.

The team implemented cross checking via Jetstream. [NOTE -- Many in the industry have taken to calling the software by the company name 'Navis Works'. This would be like referring to Revit as AutoDesk. I don't know how we all got into this habit, but for reference I quote the company's own site: 'NavisWorks is the developer of JetStream, the leading collaborative 3D/4D Design Review software'.] In most cases that I hear about, the clash detesction is being done by a contractor on site and during construction. CO Architects gives us a great example to follow in using a clash detection tool proactively, communicating with consultants in the so-called 'environment of trust.'

This is just one aspect of their mantra 'Lead, Balance, Discover', where the Architect is the champion of both BIM integration and IPD. The balance that we look for, particularly in healthcare, is to make the technology work and to keep natural elements viable. As the speakers eloquently put it, 'both systems have demands that must be met to make them work'. Finally, there is discovery -- finding the unique opportunities for sustainability that exist in every project.

CO Architects' position is that sustainability cannot be achieved without both integrated project delivery (IPD) and BIM. Just as healthcare design has improved over the centuries (from monasterys to nightingale wings, and into modern technology centers of the past fifty years) fusing the natural and technological into an environment for healing requires great care in the application of the design. BIM certainly helped, but BIM along with an investment in IPD allowed for earleir collaboration with a larger team that included an experienced contractor.

This investment in IPD was apparent in the Q&A. When asked if the team saved time and effort in the Construction Documents phase, the answer came right out of the IPD playbook -- instead of drawing details, time and effort was spent resolving issues that traditionally came up later during construciton. The time saved in earlier phases was thus banked, and now is earning interest, to pay dividends in later phases.