Life in the Fast Lane: A Fast-Track Project Update

It’s December 18, 2015, and construction crews are sitting down to a holiday feast after raising a Christmas tree to the top of a half-built office tower in the center of downtown Indianapolis.

Plastic wrap walls flapping in the breeze and temporary space heaters provide some warmth in the unfinished parking garage that’s hosting their meal. There’s still much to do before office workers move into this space next year, but for now there’s much to celebrate – especially considering this space, now an nine story, 180,000 sq. ft. concrete structure, was nothing but a hole in the ground just a few months earlier.

- 

Today, that structure is less than 12 months away from opening as the Worldwide Distribution Headquarters for Fortune 200 engine manufacturer Cummins, Inc. As crews put the finishing touches on the building’s distinctive unitized curtain wall, I sat down with Jake Plummer, RATIO Associate Principal and Project Director, to talk about fast-track project delivery, the latest in building technology, and the similarities between architecture and music.

M: Tell me about working with Cummins, especially given their traditional emphasis on world-class design and architecture.

J: Working with any large corporation has its unique challenges and this one is no different. What makes Cummins so special as a client, to use the analogy of a watch, is that they care not only what time it is, but how the watch works.

By the time RATIO had been selected by Cummins along with Deborah Berke Partners to be the Executive (local) Architect, the overall site design concept was largely decided. The attention to detail on a project of this caliber was crucial. Every decision, from comparing the types of energy systems and their true lifecycle costs, to the depth of the sunshades and their impact on the lighting and size of mechanical systems, involved multiple stakeholders.

Cummins never really established a target lifecycle of this building, but decisions were made with the knowledge that the people that are using this building from day one will not be occupying or maintaining the building in ten, twenty, or thirty years. There were dollars associated with client sustainability initiatives that were up for grabs which required critical analysis by Cummins.

The project went through a calculated value engineering cycle early in the project, which required an “attrition without detraction” philosophy; as each potential VE item was considered, it had to be evaluated against Cummins’ core values. Obviously, it could not take away from the program or the mission statement of this project, but if value could be realized that did little to impact the way the user or visitor interacted with the facility on a daily basis, it was up for consideration.

M: Talk about this project in the context of working for a Fortune 200 company.

J: Cummins is unique in that they are a global corporation that manufactures engines and generators all over the world, yet they have this value system and outward appearance that is anything but corporate. In many ways, they reflect the values that make Indiana as a state and Indianapolis as a city so different from the rest of the “homes” of Fortune 500 Companies.

What makes Cummins special as a corporation, to me, is the people that make up the organization. Having worked with so many different individuals on this project, from representatives very close to the architectural legacy that is at the root of their history here in Indiana, to those that maintain and operate their manufacturing facilities, to the executives at the top, I’ve come to understand that they have no hidden agenda.

Another thing that makes this project unique is that Cummins has not constructed a facility of this size or profile for some time, so at many times the standards which have been created on their behalf needed evaluated against this unique project.

M: What was it like working with Deborah Berke Partners?

J: Having two groups of people in different offices each with different roles, and working at different paces could prove to be challenging at times. From the project kickoff meeting, we established that all of the players on the project were to function as a single team (Cummins, FA Wilhelm, Deborah Berke Partners, RATIO, and all the sub-consultants).

As RATIO was the Executive Architect primarily responsible for delivering / executing the construction documents, permitting, and construction administration, outwardly it would appear that our work was to be more heavily focused on the back end of the project with DBP more involved in the early stages. However, due to the fast-track nature of this project, we learned early on that we had to bring in consultants who we initially thought wouldn’t be needed until later in the project much earlier.

The project utilized REVIT, though DBP did much of their early schematic floor plan and supporting structural and wall section / detailing studies in AutoCAD, which is quite different from the way we work here at RATIO. Similarly, much of the exterior envelope development, which was handled via a design-assist contract in order to facilitate obtaining a glass fabrication slot along with expedition of the building envelope procurement, was done in RHINO, which is a program that RATIO does not typically utilize.

I think it is safe to say that the advancements in technologies like GoToMeeting, Newforma, and Revit, which we relied on heavily to facilitate remote meetings, made this project feasible. We could not have done this project even 10 years ago without a much different contractual arrangement and consultant fee structure that would support setting up remote teams for months at a time here in Indianapolis. Instead we used a REVIT server that allowed both the DBP and RATIO staff to work simultaneously on one central model.

M: How has this project been different from others we’ve participated in before? Describe the fast-track process and schedule. What were the driving forces for that schedule?

J: This project, unlike anything RATIO has been involved with in the past, should be viewed as a template for the way project delivery will be heading in the next 10-20 years. More clients are learning that they have only so much money to spend, and every day longer than is truly necessary to build a building costs exponentially more money.

For the Cummins project, the initial schedule dictated that the project design was largely decided by the time the CM and local architect were hired. This was as a result of the design competition that narrowed the short-listed architects down to three firms, including DBP. By their final interview, they had the design largely conceptualized.

Once the team was solidified and a kickoff meeting held in September 2014, the schedule was laid out based on an occupancy by the Fall of 2016. This occupancy was predicated on Cummins vacating two leased spaces in several buildings in downtown Indy. The team held several early calls to discuss how the design needed to react to such a tight schedule, and it was clear how quickly decisions needed to be made, which puts much pressure not only on our design team but also the client to make informed decisions.

As an industry we must hone our skills at managing a process whereby a parallel design and construction schedule exists, which involves site preparation, early foundations, and early structural framing while the building’s design is being finalized. Understanding how projects are financed and how the construction contract is managed are key to this process.

On a fast-track project, it is the hidden or unassuming detail, caught too late, that burns us. An example: preparing the addendum for the structural frame of the tower, which is a post-tensioned cast-in-place concrete structure, we realized just how many decisions not yet made so early in the overall design had to be at least itemized at that time. This included components such as roof drains, embeds for steel fall protection and mechanical equipment support, etc.

M: What were the biggest challenges faced by our project team during the course of design and construction?

J: The overlap of multiple design / bid packages being finalized while the structure was being built and forcing design decisions simultaneously.

RATIO had staff assigned based on fee and workload reacting to a schedule that required most of our work occurring in the later stages of the design, while DBP had originally intended to have many more staff assigned earlier in the project and phasing to fewer staff while RATIO ramped up our hours. As the project evolved through construction documents, we collectively realized that this model would not work as planned and had to make adjustments.

This resulted in DBP keeping more staff involved later into the construction documents and early CA phase, while RATIO would need to keep more of our staff involved on the project into Construction Administration to manage the early submittals, Requests for Information (RFI), and Supplemental Instructions (SIs) that needed to be reviewed, coordinated, and processed.

Establishing a very clear protocol for managing these activities and establishing responsibility for them was crucial.

M: Describe the positive aspects of working under the pressures of this project timeline.

J: I’d have to say our biggest lesson learned has been the importance of clear and concise communication amongst all team players, along with establishing and refining priorities on a daily basis. When you have the urgency of time as dictated by this project schedule, critical path scheduling evolves from being a construction process tool to a design team tool.

As the Executive Architect, we are on the jobsite at least three times per week (sometimes more), and so as such we hear from the construction team what the critical path activities are for that week and must disseminate that information to our entire team. We then discuss the information we need to obtain or coordinate in order to get the construction team a complete and thorough response, and in what order we need that information.

M: Do you see this fast-track process being applied to all types and scales of projects?

J: It largely depends on the client and their market.

For some clients, such as those in higher education, we tend to deliver projects in a more linear, deliberate process, because of their complex stakeholder groups, funding structures and procurement processes. Others, like developers and corporate clients, are often on a much more constrained time frame with a set budget to be spent within that period.

M: What has been the most rewarding aspect of working on this project?

J: Probably being exposed to the diverse talents, temperaments, and methodologies of the people I’ve worked with over the past 16 months.

It takes so many different people to make a project such as this successful, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have been put into a position to help conduct, much like a symphony conductor leads an orchestra, so many talented and driven people. If one thinks about a construction project in the context of a symphony orchestra with different instruments creating different effects, uncoordinated timing or taking one piece away from an arrangement can make a beautiful song sound bad and spoil the balance of the performance.

More than anything we do as designers, our ability to recognize all of the key pieces and put them into place at the right time is the most important skill that we possess.