Planning a Phased School Renovation and Expansion

School renovation and expansion projects are commonly related to overcrowding and/or obsolete facilities. Construction in phases may be the only choice when school operations must continue in the same building or on the same site during renovations and expansion. Phasing needs and requirements should be considered during the design of such a project in order to ensure that provisions are adequate for ongoing school operations during each phase of the project.

Phasing plans and specifications should be based on at least the following considerations:

1. Each phase should provide sufficient classroom space for the enrollment. It may be necessary or advisable to rent or purchase relocatable modular classroom units for use during one or more phases of the project. The actual determination of necessary classroom count should be made by the school authority.

2. Construction areas must be adequately separated from occupied areas.

a. Separation walls may include a combination of existing walls or partitions and temporary or permanent new construction that affords the required fire separation and minimizes dust, fumes, and noise transfer from construction areas to occupied areas[1]. It also, of course, must adequately separate construction personnel from building occupants.

b. Construction fencing should be planned to separate contractor staging and construction areas from owner/user areas, neighboring properties, and public areas (e.g., streets and sidewalks). The fencing layout may need to change from phase to phase.

3. Utilities should be adequate and uninterrupted[2] in the occupied areas of the building. These utilities would typically include heat, lights, power (normal and emergency systems), telecommunications, water, sewer, fire protection and alarm systems.

a. Replacing boilers in a school can take as long as six months, especially if hazardous materials removal is part of the process, so the heating season should be considered when determining project phasing and the feasibility of replacing a heating plant in the existing location. It may be more practical to construct a new boiler room in order to minimize downtime and the risk of delays.

b. In order to maintain existing electrical services, it may be necessary to build a new electrical service entrance and backfeed the existing systems that will continue to serve existing occupied areas[3]. These backfeeds may be different for each phase of a project.

c. Any of the utilities may need temporary connections, extensions, routes, “jumpers”, supports, and/or temporary equipment in order to satisfy the need for adequate and uninterrupted utilities in occupied areas[4].

4. Adequate exits (i.e., egress facilities) must be provided. Exits must be adequate in width and arrangement to meet applicable code requirements. Exit calculations should be performed to determine code compliance. If any existing exits will be blocked by a phase of construction, the remaining exits must be sufficient in arrangement and width to meet code requirements[5], or additional permanent or temporary exits must be provided. Exit signage and lighting must also be coordinated with the exit arrangement for a given phase. Temporary[6] corridors may be necessary to link occupied parts of a building that are separated by construction areas. Protected exit walkways may be necessary to link building exits to the public way and maintain separation from construction areas.

5. Toilet facilities must be adequate to serve the occupied areas of the building. In some cases, this may influence the delineation of phases or the location of new toilets.

6. The need for food service must be addressed throughout phased school construction. Food preparation, service, and dining areas may need to be relocated to accommodate renovation and/or new construction. The challenge is reduced if food is typically prepared in a remote facility and delivered to the school undergoing renovation, but the challenge may be greater if the school undergoing renovation houses the main kitchen for several schools in a district. Can a temporary source or provider be arranged to prepare and deliver adequate meals? And, if the cafeteria itself must be offline for renovation, can an alternative space be used?

7. Athletic facilities use tends to vary seasonally. It may be practical to take a gymnasium offline during the months when physical education and other athletic programs can be accommodated outside. This consideration may influence the phasing schedule such that gymnasium renovations occur during warmer months; and field improvements may need to be completed during summer vacations or planned such that new fields are completed before existing fields are improved or taken offline.

8. Parking must be maintained or provided in sufficient quantity and condition to serve the building occupants. The parking arrangement may need to be changed from phase to phase to satisfy the requirement. Walkways must be included to connect parking areas to building entrances. Parking areas for building users should be separate from construction parking areas.

9. Separate driveways should be planned for building users, school buses, and construction. The typically desirable separation of school buses from cars should be part of each phase, and a separate vehicle entrance to the site should be planned for construction personnel and deliveries.

10. Air intakes must be protected from dust and fumes. Temporary air intake “stacks” may be necessary at building air intakes adjacent to construction areas to avoid contaminants related to construction.

11. Accessibility features that are required for the school facilities must be maintained as part of each phase[7]. These would include, for example, ramps and elevators to the extent required.

Timely phasing considerations are likely to influence a project design in ways that will make construction less disruptive for building occupants.

The requirements related to phased construction should be clearly established on the drawings and in the specifications that will be used for bidding and constructing the project.

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[1] Special requirements applicable to hazardous material removal may be more stringent and take precedence over general criteria based on desirable separation. Also, the EPA has published indoor air quality (IAQ) guidelines for school renovation (see http://www.epa.gov/iaq/schooldesign/renovation.html), and states and other authorities have established similar criteria.

[2] Contract documents may provide for necessary, brief or momentary interruptions to occur during power switchovers and similar changes. If they are necessary during occupied hours, they should be scheduled in advance with the building owner.

[3] Local fire authorities typically want to limit electrical services to a single location where power to an entire facility can be shut off in order, at least in part, to minimize risk to fire fighters.

[4] Special attention is warranted where partial building demolition will sever the services or structural support of services between occupied building areas. The bid documents should be clear in requiring temporary support or temporary rerouting of utilities and/or temporary equipment to serve the remote areas.

[5] The applicable code should be studied to determine whether any reduction in egress capacity is allowed, even in the case where existing exits exceed code requirements.

[6] The applicable code should be studied for requirements and limitations related to “temporary” construction. The duration of such construction may be limited by code to less than the anticipated duration of use during phased construction. For example, Section 108 of the 2009 IBC limits a permit for temporary structures and uses to 180 days; yet some requirements for temporary structures are not less than what is required for permanent construction. Chapter 31 of the 2009 IBC also includes requirements for temporary structures and for special construction that may be considered applicable to temporary facilities for phased school construction.

[7] Accessibility requirements would typically apply also to temporary modular classroom units.

Planning for Concealed Site Conditions

Discovery of concealed site conditions can raise havoc with a project, possibly disrupting the construction schedule and adversely impacting the project budget. Here's a link to an article I wrote a few years ago to share some of my experience with concealed site conditions: Planning for Concealed Site Conditions

Value Engineering

Any discussion of value engineering (V.E.) is likely to produce a rush of criticisms of the process if you work in an architecture or engineering practice. The architects and engineers are likely to recall bad experiences when V.E. was started late, approaching or following the completion of construction documents, at a time when the project schedule did not allow sufficient time to fully consider consequences and implement V.E. changes in a comprehensive and well coordinated manner. They are likely to complain that "V.E. stripped the value out of the project."

A better approach to V.E. is to start it earlier, when material and system decisions are being formulated and before a lot of time is invested in developing applicable details and specifications.

The Whole Building Design Guide (http://www.wbdg.org/resources/value_engineering.php) offers an excellent synopsis of V.E. and a clear picture of the advantages of doing it earlier in the life of a project.

"By Others" and "N.I.C."

The terms "By Others" and "Not In Contract" (or "N.I.C.") can add confusion to construction documents if the intent of the terms is not well established within the documents. The note "By Others" on a drawing may be intended to indicate that an item is to be provided by a different trade under the same overall construction contract, and "N.I.C." may be intended similarly to indicate an item that is to be provided by a different trade. However, these notes may have different meanings for different readers. Without further clarification, a general contractor seeing a note "By Others" or "N.I.C." may take it at face value to mean the item is not part of the general contractor's scope at all, even if the intent of the note was to indicate its exclusion only from the work of a particular trade or subtrade or a particular bid package. It is better to develop and use terms that convey the intent more precisely. For example, if an item shown on a site plan is intended to be provided by an electrical contractor whose work scope is also established on other drawings, it may be appropriate for the site plan to include the term "By Electrical Contractor" in a note relating to the item. Alternatively, it may be practical for all items that are not intended to be part of the site work to be noted "Not by Site Work Contractor", provided the term does not contradict a general contractor's contractual authority to assign such work. Drawings which are specifically intended to describe the work of a particular trade or subtrade can benefit from a List of Abbreviations or a List of Terms which clarify the meaning of such notes in order to minimize confusion.

Reviewing the Contractor's Application for Payment

On most public construction projects, the Architect reviews the Contractor's monthly Applications for Payment (a.k.a. "Requisitions") and certifies the amount to be paid to the Contractor for that month. If the Application is made on AIA Document G702, the front page includes the names of the Project, the Owner, the Contractor, and the Architect, an Application number, date(s) indicating the period covered by the Application, an overview accounting of the monetary status of the construction project, starting with the original contract sum and including a calculation of the Current Payment Due, considering change orders, the total amount completed and stored to date, Retainage to be withheld, and previous certificates for payment. The front page also includes a Change Order Summary, certification by the Contractor, conditions (terms) of certification by the Architect, and the amount certified. Continuation sheets should break down the contract sum and progress according to the approved Schedule of Values (see The Schedule of Values deserves close attention) and also include a detailed accounting of the status of work on approved Change Orders.

The Architect should review even the basic information on the front page before looking at the detailed information on the continuation sheets. It helps to have a copy of the previous month's Application in hand for comparison. Once you determine that the current month's Application is for the appropriate project (seriously), check the Original Contract Sum. In more than one instance, a contractor has changed the Original Contract Sum on an Application for Payment, resulting in an increase in payment without an approved Change Order. The Original Contract Sum should remain the same for the life of the Contract. Before turning to the continuation sheets, the Architect should apply the same scrutiny to the rest of the front page calculations and the wording of the certification. Different certification language may carry different liability.

Detailed information on the continuation sheets is typically generated as part of a "pencil requisition" process and in anticipation of work to be completed by the end of the month. The Architect needs to consider whether the final Application for the month represents work that was actually accomplished by the end of the month. If the Architect is aware that an anticipated material delivery did not occur, then the Architect should not certify payment for that. Likewise, if the Architect is aware that a specific work item was not completed, then the Architect should not certifiy payment as if the item had been completed. Necessary adjustments to the continuation sheets must be carried over to the front page and to the overall amount certified by the Architect for the period covered by the Application. It may be practical for the Contractor to make the necessary adjustments and then resubmit a corrected Application for the Architect's certification. If timely payment is an overriding concern, then the Architect may need to make the adjustments by annotating the Application, certifying a reduced amount, and notifying both the Owner and the Contractor of the reasons for the adjustments. (See also It takes timely money to make a project go )

Manage Design Costs with Early Project Overtime

One of Mike's PM tips for managing design costs on a project: "If you know you are going to have to work overtime on a project," he said, "do it in the beginning. It costs less to do overtime when there are only one or two people working on a project." (See Purposeful chaos (the 2-minute design offense))

This makes a lot of sense when considering a project on a compressed time line. If you're trying to figure out how to get all the work done in a short period of time, the least attractive alternative is having an army of designers and drafters burning the midnight oil and generating design questions as the completion deadline approaches. Eleventh hour overtime can quickly burn through budgeted hours and fee dollars, and too many new or unanswered questions at that stage can lead to unplanned chaos.

It's also interesting to consider how this principle of early overtime might benefit progress and labor costs on a construction site. Early trades - like earthwork, concrete, and steel - set the stage for a larger work force, and trades can multiply as the project becomes ready for their work.

Shop Drawing Review Comments

While it can be frustrating for an architect to review shop drawing submittals that appear to lack adequate preparation or attention to contract requirements, it is still important for the architect to maintain professional decorum in the review comments. This is equally true for the review of resubmitted shop drawings that do not include corrections noted by the architect on a previous submittal. An inadequate resubmittal may warrant separate correspondence from the architect to the contractor noting the repeated deficiencies and, if applicable, the possibility of adverse effects on the project schedule; but the review comments and correspondence should communicate clearly and without sarcasm or accusations. For example, "Why can't you get it?" is not a proper architect review comment on a shop drawing submittal.