All together now

In one of the hottest weeks of the summer, architects, engineers and QSs came together for Teamwork 2001’s Live Week to see if technology could be used to bring about real collaboration on projects. At least one participant was sceptical – did it work?

Of all those who have embraced the aims of the Egan report, few can be as active in achieving Sir John’s goals as the Teamwork initiative, headed by architect Paul Fletcher.
As the RIBA Journal reported in May (pages 81-82), Teamwork 2001’s Live Week aimed to achieve the post-Egan utopia of an integrated team approach to design. But did it live up to the hype? Hosted by the RIBA in the final sweltering week of June, the project brought together architects, engineers, cost consultants and even insurance experts and lawyers to see how technology can be used as a catalyst for change.
Whereas last year’s Live Week project worked with an existing design, the focus this year was to address a real brief from scratch: to design a building – its structure, services and costs – with all participants working simultaneously on a single 3D computer model.
The brief, presented to the team members on the first morning, was to design a new secondary school for Alperton Community School in north-west London. The school is currently the subject of a PFI bid, so Teamwork developed the PFI schedule of accommodation into a full architectural brief ahead of Live Week.
Heading the design team was architect Eric Guibert, project architect at Geoffrey Reid Associates. He approached the week with some reservations. ‘I was very concerned before the project started that we would end up with a rather boring, modular solution,’ he says, ‘but the end result was much more exciting.’

The key to the Teamwork vision is to involve more disciplines from the start of a project, establishing a ‘parallel’ model of working, all disciplines designing together, rather than the more traditional linear pattern where disciplines work in isolation. ‘It was unusual to be working closely together with the other disciplines at such an early stage on a project – it was very fluid and flexible,’ says Guibert. ‘Because we were working on a 3D model, there was a need to define things more clearly at this early stage. Paradoxically, this was both more rational and yet gave us more freedom. Having to think more about the design and co-ordination at this stage means there is less reworking at a later stage.’

The design process also involved contractors and manufacturers down the supply chain. Steelwork was designed on the Wednesday, the design altered on Thursday and a sample delivered to Live Week on Friday, the manufacturer having fed the 3D model directly into computerised steel-cutting systems. Using the model, as opposed to 2D drawings, meant that more complex geometry could be considered, with specialist manufacturers able to cut individual segments of a design directly from the model. Last year’s project had used MicroStation Triforma software to model a building. This time, the detailed design of the teaching blocks, part of a ‘street’ scheme that emerged as the preferred overall solution, used Autodesk’s Architectural Desktop and Nemetschek’s AllPlan. These two object-based packages shared 3D models using the latest industry foundation classes standards (IFC). In theory at least, IFC provides a common language that CAD packages can use to define and share information. So a door object can remember its dimensional parameters, manufacturer, cost and so on when transferred between different programs. Although current IFC standards proved to be far from perfect, they did allow for intelligent 3D models to be shared between teams using different software. This is not the same as having a number of disciplines working in real time on the same model, but this was achieved elsewhere in Teamwork, where structural and building services engineers worked concurrently on the same model. ‘Often we find ourselves, as architects, taking the initiative with other disciplines, getting them to co-ordinate their own work with each other,’ says Guibert. ‘Working on the same model meant that clashes between structure and services had to be sorted out immediately.’ Bentley Software’s current lack of compliance with IFC standards, however, meant that the ideal of sharing object-based information seamlessly between the team could not be achieved. A real test
Autodesk’s David Clarke is keen to reap the benefits of Teamwork. ‘We’re already doing single building models on a number of very large commercial projects, but we hope that the experience of Teamwork will produce a how-to-do-it best practice for the processes that go behind designing in this way.’ Clarke is also keen to push Teamwork further: ‘In a test project there is no real risk. I would like to see Teamwork tackle a real commercial project, where you just have to make it work regardless of the difficulties you come across.’

Should technology change the way we work? ‘Interestingly, this year’s Live Week was less about technology and much more about the process of design,’ says Fletcher, the driving force behind Teamwork. ‘What the technology did do was give us the opportunity to work in a more co-operative, elastic way, getting the best out of everyone involved.’

Guibert sees the role of the architect changing as a more team-oriented working pattern is established. ‘I felt that the role is a bit like that of a film director, giving a sense of unity and overall vision, but drawing out the specialist skills of each of the people involved. But you also need to be able to encourage people to a point where they can have a positive attitude to change. Not everyone is there yet.’

Live Week 2001 showed something of the potential for establishing more co-operative ways of working. But it also showed quite clearly that technology is not the key, it is only a catalyst. Its biggest lesson, though, is that the most important requirement is the ability and the humility to rethink the way we construct and design. For more details, visit www.team-work.org.uk