[3] PHASES FOR HOUSE DESIGN - HOW MANY ARE ENOUGH?

1 - Design Phases & Phases For Design

Regarding the design phases, the article "[2] Design Phases" has clearly presented to us 6 - 7 phases for a architectural project, here we are necessary to re-publish the stable of design phases, before we get into the topic of this article:

However, when mention about “phases for design”, means "pure design" stages, there are only 4 phases, the other phases are all related works or extracted from the 3 phases later. For these 4 phases, in Vietnam and internationally, they are basically the same, just the naming nouns and adjectives which stand for, are slightly different. They are:

1. Tiền Thiết Kế | Pre-Design

2. Thiết Kế Sơ Bộ | Schematic Design

3. Thúc Tiến Thiết Kế (Thiết kế Cơ Sở) | Design Development (Identified Design)

4. Thiết Kế Chi Tiết (hay Thiết Kế Bản Vẽ Thi Công) | Construction Documents (or Construction

Drawing Design)

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Even though, many design offices only make 3 folders for 3 phases numbered 2, 3, 4. The Pre-Design phase is kept separately in a certain folder, for example Input, Site Analysis or Documentation.

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3S House Section - MODS | courtesy MODS A-D-G

Comparing with the 6 stages mentioned above:

For the Bidding - Negotiation phase (5), although it often involves updating the design, it is basically either based on Design Development (3) or on Construction Documents (4), depends on which contractors the owner chooses after which stage.

For the Construction Administration phase (6), in fact, although in this stage the architects often adjusts the design, especially the addition of drawings, but the design is basically based on the Construction Documents (4) which are completed and exported before.

In common regulation, when designing any architectural project, we basically go through these 4 stages. However, in the title of this article, the writer refers to Housing, because this is a topic that civilians so much need to learn about; And in this big topic, there is an issue that needs to be clarified: Although there are 4 design phases, in reality, we do not necessarily carry out those 4 phases in every project. This basically means that, due to market choices, clients of architectural firms are different, this leads to adjustments in the level of work detail. Do people who are future homeowners really know this, when they scroll through a series of architectural firms or reference lists, to find an architect? Do they know that the work phases of those consultants are different? For this thing, even young junior architects do not much understand. So within our limited capacity, this article is hoped to help you more or less.

2 - Many Design Offices Only Perform 2-3 Phases For Design But It Does Not Mean They Are Wrong

a.  THE REDUCTION OF AN IMPORTANT PHASE

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For many reasons, many design offices basically only carry out 3 phases:

Pre-Design, Schematic Design, Construction Documents.

There is no Design Development phase, that's basically it. In many cases, there is no Pre-Design phase, which means that the architects receives a summary of the design tasks (such as: site location and site boundaries according to the certificate of land-use, architectural requirements, requirements on number of rooms, room types, number of floors), then start. However, (basically) there is no need to carefully visit the site, do the site analysis, together with project entering steps.

ation operations.

Nevertheless, the lack of a Pre-Design phase is not the main content of this article. The topic of this article is mostly attributed to the elimination of the Design Development phase, causing a two-way influence:

a. Contract Value

b. Design Completion Time

c. Design Quality.

Example of two-way influence for number a. Contract value: When the contract value is not enough to cover operating costs, architects are forced to do it quickly or reduce the amount of work, then it is difficult to go through the Design Development to analyse problems in depth. On the contrary, due to the choice of market, the consulting team actively chooses their policy, causing the contract value to be determined accordingly. The explanation for number b. Design Completion Time and number c. Design Quality are also similar. (please note that the word "quality" here is not as serious as we think, it's just that going deep into the problem is difficult to achieve.)

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b.  WHY AND HOW THIS AFFECT?

Summary of the properties of the 4 phases

When receiving a project and signing a contract (or even not yet), architects start a survey of the existing site, give some basic initial advice to customers, and talk to them to help both sides understand each other better. This is the Pre-Design phase (1).

Then the architects plan a conceptual design plans including preliminary floor plans, typical sections, and graphical perspectives. For residential projects, floor height, column location and size can be decided at this stage. (This is also the reason why we can immediately move to the Construction Documents phase after the completion of this phase). In addition, depending on project requirements, there may be additional parameter tables along with some other descriptions. This is the Schematic Design phase (2).

Next, the architects will enter the important stage connecting Schematic Design and Construction Documents (Detailed Design), which is the Design Development phase (3): At this phase they might be able to make handmade models, in order to revise and consider the conceptual design that was approved at the Schematic Design phase before, and even takes the effort to make more graphical perspective drawings to supplement and complete the previous conceptual design. At this phase, the designers develop more carefully parts of the building from inside to outside, arranges the house's landscape, arrange lights at the same time as the ceiling drawings, and analyse more deeply and carefully the previous interior layouts. Finishing materials are also considered for building in this phase, not simply tiling facades along with exterior and interior wall paint. After ensuring the final aesthetic design of the project, the architects stop this phase and make an apointment with their clients before moving on to the Construction Documents phase. It should be added that also during this stage, even before all architectural issues need to be solved and finalized, architects often confirm general structural issues first including foundations, number and location of columns, beams, roofs, other structural components and forward the drawings to the structural engineer, discuss with them to confirm on all basic structural issues of the building. After that, the architects once again forward the drawings to the Mechanical - Electrical - Plumbling engineers for further analysis. These engineres performs work items within their scope. Then the whole consulting team will assemble into a set of documents for this phase - often called Identified Design Document in Vietnam.

After completing the Design Development phase, there is the Detailed Design phase (or Construction Drawing Design) (4). Customers and colleagues basically understand this stage, this stage is to develop technical details with accompanying dimensions to serve the construction. If basically all the aesthetic issues have been decided in the previous stage - Design Development, then in this phase you bring out the basic elements of that design and show them on the drawinngs how they constructed with enough dimensions accompanied by? For example, the main elements are Plan, Elevation, Section, Staircase, Kitchen, Water-closet, Doors,... Other disciplines such as Structure, Mechanic - Electricity - Plumbing are also implemented similarly. During this phase, the architects also have more connections with the contractors, including build contractors, interior contractors and some other contractors.

Consequences if there is no Design Development phase

After reading the above section, customers will immediately realize the impact of this phase and what the result will be if they adjust the amount of work in this phase or skip this phase. To say that this phase is omitted (skipped) is not really true, because in fact some of the work of this phase is inserted into the previous phase - Schematic Design or the next phase - Construction Documents. But one thing is certainly the truth: these tasks are not enough and it can be affirmed that there is basically no Design Development phase as its definition.

As preliminarily mentioned at the beginning of section a, the design consulting market is naturally created due to two mutually supportive factors, the first is the ability to pay for design fees of the homeowner or the level of high or low requirement for architectural quality from the homeowner, the second is the way architects choose for their practice and business. Accordingly, there are 3 factors, also are 3 results that are created with two-way influences:

1. Contract Value

2. Design Completion Time

3. Design Quality

The Contract Value – the design fee for a house in Vietnam can range from a few tens of millions to 1 billion VND (from about a few thousand dollars to 42 thousand dollars), or even more. In the absence of a Design Development phase, the contract value is often below or moderate. We are not talking about specific numbers but just the amount of work. The amount of work shown is usually only the general architecture or there may be some additional graphic design of the main interior spaces, but there is no aesthetic responsibility for the entire interior and landscape. Particularly in the architectural part, basic materials are often also specified, not all; many architectural details have to be presented how to suit the time and supply capacity of the market, there is no need to examine thoroughly because this is not the requirement from either side. In general, based on only the workload factor, the level of detail in the architectural part of an ordinary-fee design document, not including the interior and landscape, is only about 50 percent of the architectural part of a design document that was seriously studied and fully presented through all the design phases.

The Design Completion Time can be only just 1 month or half a year (usually), not including the time to update the design while the project is being built. If there is a Design Development phase, the project duration is longer, the number of drawings is also greater and more research is needed, so the operating costs of the consulting side of course must be much higher, including consider updating the design and diligently follow the construction while the project is being built. If there is no Design Development phase, the time will certainly be shortened quite a lot. In some cases, the design time is not too long but there is still a Design Development phase. That is the case where the homeowner trusts the architect and is willing to listen to advice during the construction process even though those designs were not be presented via drawings (or architects hasn't had time to complete.)

Design Quality can be Good, it can be Moderate, it can be Bad. Being Bad is often due to attitude and ability. Being Good often comes with a good attitude and ability of the design side, but it is certainly indispensable to give good conditions for creativity as well as completion time, also economic conditions, from the investor to the architects. Regarding economic conditions, this factor of course becomes serious if as an organization. Being Moderate has two opposite reasons, one is that the conditions and requirements are moderate, so having a good spirit of cooperation and effort in work can only produce moderate quality; Second, the spirit of cooperation is not good, not completely excited about the work. Perhaps some will probably use the excuse that the homeowner only wants to pay that much so they can only work to that level - that’s the architectural product.

Regarding reducing the Design Development phase, of course, without high requirements from both sides, the quality obviously cannot be high. Many people take this issue seriously and many others do not, because it is clearly a fact that we pass hundreds of ordinary houses on the street before encountering an prominent house, and life just continues.

c.  IT DOES NOT TOTALLY MEANS THE ARCHITECTS ARE WRONG

So, we have the analysis and arguments to come to the conclusion that the architect is not necessarily at fault. That is true. It is important to understand that architectural consultants do not always receive house design contracts that the homeowners accept (or have good economical conditions) to pay them enough to design additional details of the projects. Among these architects, the number of architects who not only sign a good design contract but also can convinces the clients for their own architectural styles is rare.

In deed, the architect is wrong when customers respect and trust them but they do not respond with a corresponding attitude. Concurrently, no matter how few or many phases they do, they still do it superficially, either in work or in behavior, just want to get the job done quickly and then deliver the documents to the homeowner. In other cases, although the result is not an noteworthy architectural work, it is not the designer's fault because their business belongs to a certain market in which clients with limited economic resources just can only sign affordable contracts; correspondingly, either they require quick design and construction schedule, or they do not require much for the number of the architectural-designed-details, and also customers do not take seriously in looking an output that is an aesthetic architectural product. Of course, that is a necessary condition to explain that the architect is not at fault when designing a normal project, there must be a sufficient condition that with that amount of work, the architect still does it conscientiously and responsibly.

The article may be ended here. Thank you for taking time to read.

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- MODS -

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(Bài viết đúc kết từ các nguồn tài liệu khác nhau và từ kinh nghiệm của người viết - The article originates from different sources and from the writer's experience.)