PART III - INTERVIEW PREP
Post exam review:
PDA: why did you move to Edinburgh?
EoT: how have this come about?
Internal catchups
Initiative and trustworthy, are you not trustworthy?
Cynical writing, summer and winter parties a way of retaining staff.
Edinburgh system of year out during undergrad, how come you wanted to stay on for your Masters?
How did the change of name and practice structure affect you or how have you seen the change?
How involved are you in fee tracking
How to quantify the Lead Designer role?
What is your duty as Lead Designer?
DBA stop consulting, did they get away with it?
Apt rebrand
not replacing BIM manager?
Who was in charge of the tile change?
How are changes managed?
If you could change or do anything different on this project, what would that be?
do you have any questions for us?
- arch consultant for 3 practices, in terms of business growth, mentoring (architect, project manager…)
- not enough on procurement at bartlett undergrad/postgrad, but they have something similar to the lead designer
did you like the part 3 course?
will you be on the project to the very end?
- 50%
what else will you be doing?
- repeat business: trafalgar way
Urbanest business model? Kings? Will Urbanest be operating?
Develop and construct?
Did Apt have any duties when Hopkins left the job? Did they send the drawings willingly?
Questions for Nat:
Low budget, low scope of work?
Redundancy mitigation?
Brexit mitigation for EU nationals?
Party walls
Legislation
New site photos
Crib sheet
Printed out CAR (with notes?)
Printed out fee tracker
Mechanism!
Meet the Examiners evening was great. When I wrote my question I thought it was going to revolve around automation and workflow efficiency, however it transformed into something different, about overtime and individual offices approaches. Did not expect that!
Apt at Stage 6:
- architectural snagging/inspections
- comment on manuals
- plans/models digitally
Apt at Stage 7:
- re-inspect at Defects Liability Period
- provide written confirmation
- request feedback from Client with regards to our services
Enjoyed the project:
- UNC fit into Apt business plan
- First Delivery Project for the studio
- at the time, short on turnover (timing perfect)
- on the new business plan, it has been agreed to aim to incorporate a mix of planning and delivery projects for experience, fee certainty and to increase portfolio, protect design intent (curvature, room layouts)
- milestones: what was consented at planning (example: lift overruns), what was in tender documents (example: free area for stair), what was in contract (example: change control layouts, joinery/MVHR spec), what has been signed off for construction (example: BC)
- less speculative and more practical/real/physical, feels like you're really running a project with outcomes and consequences, planning/academic projects don't have the same "clarity"
What do you plan on doing after Part 3, immediately?
- set up some coding scripts for the office, maybe one on finance too
- make short promotional films for every project
- make short clips for when key events happen on site, e.g. when the first facade units are put on
- trying to find my way in the new role in the same office
- I think after qualifying my horizons will be opened and I am excited to be able to have more of an “open-end” if that makes sense, at the same time, feeling like this is where my real career starts, I am very excited to find a way of implementing the modern new architect into this industry and see what role I can have in that change, either it is in the same office or move to another one, I am very grateful for all the support they have given me but I think I am more informed now and might identify more opportunities for growth, try to be more involved in innovation
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Recent news in the industry
- Grenfell (recent legislation and impact of public interest/politics)
’The government’s proposals only apply to buildings over 18m high, plus hospitals, care homes and student accommodation, where they apply to all buildings, whatever their height or use. (A1, A2)
- Insulation/CLT
- Balconies
- New products
- Client response
- Testing
- Trade Union (protection for employees, a reference point to use with your boss etc)
- Architects Declare (decolonise the canon, sustainable, diversity, hear more voices, inclusivity, events to share ideas, great initiative, hope it spreads to the big companies and contractors and clients and impact education)
- Brexit (diversify into other countries, industries, while maintaining strengths, keep up to date with foreign factory conditions, provide info for employees, eu nationals qualifications)
D&B in today's construction industry
- Novation, from Planning to Developed to Technical to Construction (between all stages)
- Maintaining quality - design intent - planning conditions (e.g. Leeds, curved glass, sold on that)
Insurance/collateral warranties:
- associated with primary contract
- duty of care extended to a third party
- contractor obtains CW’s from sub-cons (to client/architect?)
- step-in (funding/insurance)
Other issues
- no red bubbles
- limited survey for Roman Wall and title boundary and start without a clear boundary is a risk
- Party walls structurally part of existing building
- services too low in B2 (whose fault)
- incorrect extracts after frozen design
- fire alarm engineer only first reviewed at S6 Construction Issue
- not advisable from PL to issue instructions for extra work because of the pipes and PL anticipates that we will be blamed, very tactical and political
- pictureframe vs beaded frame access panels, last thing to be installed as the services are the very last thing to inspect before completing the building
- pod move because of bracket, blame KFK? client will not be happy
Arch Consultancy
- To what extent do you consult on the entire building process, or do you contribute with focused efforts only at certain stages? To what extent do you feel that your role has changed within the procurement (or selling) of a building?
Architecture Education
- I understand that you are exploring the challenges facing society and the built environment today, looking at the units you teach, however, what emphasis do you place on workflow and the role of the architect in a future team context? I understand that academic projects are different, but do you think let’s say exploring Design and Build would be intriguing for students?
Future of the architect
- design and build, gets you close to construction
- minimises the risk of becoming marginalised or obsolete
- maybe as a CA/EA we would be more empowered
- position ourselves in the systems of delivery and understand the financial and technical protocols at play
- develop workflow processes for analysis and evaluation (meta-design)
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