Are you ready for.................................another change?

[Rliebing]

WITHER GOETH THE PROJECT MANUAL?
by Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI
Cincinnati, OH

Humph! Now what the devil do we call it?

The AIA in revising and updating [?] Document A201, "General Conditions of the Contract has divined that Project Manual is no longer… well, I dont know what, but that Drawing and Specifications will now both suffice and be used.

Now with a zillion PRMs being used [OK, several thousand-- got to dreaming there!] and as many more stockpiled, the title for the major product produced via information in the PRM, is gone-- vanished; non-plus; obsolete; and hence forth confusing used.

Is this an improvement or some other nefarious venture? Was Project Manual so far from the point that it was misleading, confusing and inappropriate? Nah!!

Reality says, I guess, that the term was so foreign to AIA lexicon, so marginal that it simply had to go. Seems, too, that it was still catching on in normal conversation, replacing the specs, so in may be it was never really thoroughly entrenched, and deemed sanctum-sanctorum by the professionals.

Too, for years there may have been a covert, well-hidden, clandestine effort by some to call that book, The Ridiculous Epistle of Amazing Musings-- REAM that is! Guess who was on that committee.

So now just as we got set with the latest [as of two days ago] release of CAD, and are trying to get it settle it before the next release [Thursday of next week we hear], we have to download, erase, re-train our tongues, delete from our computer, etc., etc., etc., the term Project Manual.

Wonder now where that wall is with all the Post-Ems with suggestions of what to call spec writers under the BIM system.

Has to be one!

[Thanks to Mark Kalin, FAIA, FCSI for the watch-out on this topic]

[rjray]

I read about this in some magazine a few weeks ago.

I plan to simply add the former definition of Project Manual to the Supplementary Conditions along with the other definitions I already have that AIA does not define.

[john_regener]

I still get calls and references from “senior” architectural team members about “book specs.” They are clueless about this new-fangled term, Project Manual, and get befuddled when advised that it was the good ol’ A-1-A that came up with the title.

There is a carry-over in many firms, especially in the management ranks, from the days of “developer” documents (just enough information to get a building permit but not enough to constrain the contractor from saving money). Sometimes I get calls (and refuse) to “update our sheet specs.” Those are the 3-4 sheets in the architectural series of drawings with “boilerplate” specs that are less detailed than what are normally called shortform specs. As some wise architect once pronounced, “Less is less.”

Don’t confuse the sheet specs with the 1-2 sheets of “General Notes” which repeat, contradict and generally confuse matters with inapplicable and inappropriate requirements that are repeated project after project, usually to make sure that the screw up on some project ten years ago never, ever gets repeated.

[sheldon_wolfe]

Has the definition of specifications changed in the new 201?

[tom_good]

So I guess that means there will shortly be updates to all the other AIA documents such as AIA A101-1997 which includes:
8.1.3 The Supplementary and other Conditions of the Contact are those contained in the Project Manual dated ____, and are as follows:
8.1.4 The Specifications are those contained in the Project Manual dated as in Subparagraph 8.1.3, and are as follows:

[bunzick]

AIA will be releasing a number of revised documents later in 2007, all coordinated with A201 and each other.

[hollyrob]

Does anyone have a list of the documents which will be revised and the changes that are contemplated?

[hollyrob]

Where is this magazine article that Mr. Ray read?

Where can Mr. Kalin’s tip be found?

[specman]

Sheldon:

I think this is how they’re defining specifications:

“Specifications: The detailed and verbose ramblings of how the project should be completed, and are typically never read and understood by architects, owners, contractors, and building officials. However, they are thoroughly examined by attorneys when a claim is submitted.”

[john_regener]

I made the mistake in education sessions at the AIA Convention the last couple of years of asking questions about specifications. The looks I got were as though I had farted in public. It’s like, “what do specs have to do with architecture?”

Since construction specifications are rarely taught in architecture school — or at least not more than a couple of lecture sessions over a 5 or 6 year curriculum — they must not be important.

So, will the BIM make specifications and Project Manuals obsolete? Should we even be concerned? Alfred E. Neuman, show us the way!

[Rliebing]

For John R. and others interested

ONE MORE, ONE !
by Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI
Cincinnati, OH

No, its not Count Basie! Its count basic!

For various but rather obscure reasons, we are seeing a mounting crescendo in the concerns over BIM. This is insightful and good for those of us in specifications. There is a need, as soon as possible, to come to grips wit what this program MAY impose on us, or how we may be changed by it.

Now it is a little disconcerting to have the software industry doing its thing to the degree that our work and indeed, lives may be changed. Rather unfair [but I know, lifes not fair] but also rather shortsighted.

Once again, as with CAD the design elements of the professions have seen and embraced the newer technology and worked with the software folks to create new whiz-bang program. Of course, many of the features truly do embellish the design process and allow for greater analysis, and reckoning of the design concept.

But in a repast of history, the computerization folks are again ignored the more practical and grunt aspects of project-- the working drawings and specifications. Of course, with numerous iterations, release, and wholly new programs, CAD is nowas in eventuallyinvolved in working drawing production. Course, procedures HAVE to be re-fashioned to meet the demands or capabilities of the programming and MUST function within newly [relatively] process, and procedures.

One great and growing loss is the technical construction knowledge that is not contained in the mind of the average CAD operator [those with Associate degrees or no degree] who has been narrowly trained via the computer and not through instruction about means, methods, processes, equipment, types and intricacies of construction.

Are we facing a similar scenario with BIM? Here again, the high profile of the program is a design-oriented process that relates almost exclusively to the design process, and its evaluation. Then comes the Oh, yes! We need construction information and knowledgehow do we get that in the model? Hhhmmmm?

A document called, Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), published several years ago [also addressed in BIM (Building Information Modeling) Update, AIA in 2003] calls for what appears to be specification-type information being transformed into IFCs, and then inserted into the BIM database. From this the program can pull out what it wants or needs when a specific item is utilized in the model for the building. For example, place a door, and you get everything-you-want-to-know-about-doors [or this door]-but were-afraid-to-ask.

Seems to smack of specifications, doesnt it?

Yet, oddly enough, running a Find through most of the documents that mention BIM rarely calls forth the word specification in the context of what we consider project specifications. Almost always the notes allude to the specifications for setting up the BIM system-- certainly NOT the same items!!!

Where has cooperation, openness and collaboration gong? Why is the specifications industry asking in in stead of being INCLUDED right off? We suggest that yet again, specifications are the step-child-- out of sight, out of mind, until the blood flows.

Better we at least begin to understand that specifications and associated construction information/knowledge are equally!!! as important as any other piece of data in the whole of the BIM system.

Hence if BIM purports to be all inclusive, best it incorporate the full array and all aspects of specifications from Division 00 through Division XX [as required by the project work.

OR do we still issue a reduced Project Manual for the administrative and legal issues of projects?

[hollyrob]

Ralph kindly forwarded this to me, it was in ARCAT specNEWS No. 17 - Mid-April 2007:

A201 Removes Project Manual Term

Specifiers have become accustomed to using the term Project Manual for specifications bound with contract forms and conditions of the contract. The CSI Project Resource Manual and the current edition of AIA A201-1997, General Conditions of the Contract for Construction published by the AIA refer to the term Project Manual. However, the new AIA A201-2007 is in the final approval stages and no longer uses the term Project Manual, deferring to Drawings and Specifications as sufficient terms for the contract documents. The updated AIA agreement forms enumerate the contract documents by individual name.

[Rliebing]

Now friends, neighbors, colleagues and others-- obviously my preceeding was written before the AIA “scope”, but did CSI take part in the “negotiations” that revised 201? If not, why not? If os, how did CSI input get ignred or overturned?

And to Mr. Regener’s issues-- hadn’t we better get going on inteface or confronting the AIA, et. al. on the “issue” of specifications? Seems that is a massive initiaive required to get this stuff straight once and for all.

Specs are not looney-tunes, and often are financialand professional butt-savers for those who ignore their very existence.
Gosh I just think we have SOOOOOOOOO much to do and boy, have we got the goooooood folks to get it done!!!

[redseca2]

It seems the word “manual” is sooo last century. Perhaps we need to update to “Project Data Storm” or “Project PDF Master File X”.

[mchavez]

Just a quick note as I am slammed today.

1. I know nobody loves us and most architects (and contractors) cant read, women dont want answers; they just want to talk, men cant commit and the current government..anyway
2. Autodesks Revit does indeed contain a Uniformat number (more or less correct) for each of the generic assemblies (objects like walls etc) that it comes with. Of course you can create your own assemblies and assign your own numbers.
3. They are creating modeling software. It is not their main intention to create software that is all things to all people in the construction business, BUT
4. as contractors and architects are forced into tighter and tighter alliance because of tighter time and money constraintsthey are trying to hit the buttons that will make them money (sorry for being crass, but it is about making money)
5. Having software that looks for interferences between steel beams and HVAC ducts in 3D and points them out to you instead of you having to visualize from orthographic projections makes sense. Hell, orthographic projections are only 200 to 250 years old. The devis (cost estimates basic specifications etc) was a huge thing that rocked the Napoleonic world; they were the BIM of the time. Many architects cried at that time that the poetics was being ripped from architecture. The loss of craftsmanship etc. etc. Before that Well, thats a book called Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science by Alberto Prez-Gmez.
6. More pragmatically; do we want to place all the spec information inside an already very large database? Perhaps we link the two databases. I already use a database for my specs called SpecLink. Im working on ways to integrate the two. Its up to me and you to do it; the Draw-ers in the shop will not be leaping forward. Several lawyers (one of whom I working with) and the AIA are all working on ways to assign risk when the data (skinny legs and all) is passed from Architect to Structural Engineer to GC to Fabricator to Erector and then to Owner.
7. The knowledge path from father to daughter (or son) was lost with the lack of Gen-Xers. We are all going to have to pull the youngsters up faster and hold on to the retiring baby boomers longer. Our craft is more specialized than ever before. Do you have a training program for the Associate Degree drafters you hire? If not; why not? Graduates from professional programs are just as ignorant. In the hand drawn days youd set them to do presentation elevations (because thats all they were good for.) Now we have them model in 3D because thats Do we have a training program for them (including the IDP)? They still need one AND there are no 40 year olds in harness to train them.

OK thats my short note. I have a spec.. I mean project manual, no I mean big book of arcane knowledge to write.

[awhitacre]

BIM is not going to make specs obsolete. in the most linked version of the world, the drawings will be linked directly to the spec information that goes with them (and I have seen telecom drawings like this with hyperlinks), but as you all know, that information is more and more complicated than it used to be. I answer the same questions from young staff that I always answered – and more so, because no one is coming out of school with much information about materials or very much understanding about how things actually get built.

Digital Project (another 3D modeling software that we use in this office) also references spec section numbers and in that way ties the 3D models more closely to the specs than before. what 3D models have done for this office is make the architects responsible for the information – and the contractor relies on it. we get 6 bidders on a project with less than 1% deviation in price on very complicated structures. That’s because they aren’t doing take-offs, they are using the same modeling data to get their quantities. Spec writers aren’t going away with BIM; spec writers are more responsible for providing the appropriate information so that the models are correct. I have more people asking me questions and more people coordinating with the specs in my current office using BIM than I did in my former location without BIM.

what we call the “project manual” isn’t that important. what is important is that they aren’t getting any smaller.

[m2architek]

There is rarley a day that goes by where i am not amazed at the micro managing of outsiders and it just blows me away. The very group that initiated the term “Project Manual” seeks a ‘make work’ change and confusion for all others to deal with now that we have convinced others that the term Project Manual is more acceptable. Why not leave well enough alone…

Ok…ok…“A large book of mosly unread and unused paper”

remember… drawings are interpreted in the field…Project Manuals are interpreted in the courtroom.

BIM will not make specifiers obsolete…only we can do that when we fail to stand up for what is proper means of doing so…and cave to the whims of others as they see through their little focused lenses

[Rliebing]

THE SPECIFICATIONS INIITIATIVE
by Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI
Cincinnati, OH

OK, Im ticked!

OK, weve griped, moaned, and talked too long, to each other!

OK, we, the choir, have the message-- we understand!

OK, its time to take the kid gloves off and really come to grips with the issues. Of course, were fighting from behind, but let me ask this-- When and where did specifications become so irrelevant, ignored, maligned, misunderstood, and dismissed by the very professionals who need them for their projects?

When? Where? and Why?

There are protestations all over the place about Contract Documents, in the realm of Agreement, drawings, and-- is it still true?-- SPECIFICATIONS?

If so, then why do the other professionals from designers on down look down their noses at specifications and those who produce them?

Why do we hold to the tripartite definition, A-D-S?

Why does the impact of specifications pervade almost every legal cases brought dealing with a construction project?

We a re left to wonder if Sullivan, Wright, Meis, Gropius, Breuer, Corbo and the other even older masters wrote specs. Perhaps not, but did they diss them? Did they utilize some [in some form] for their projects? The answer from this quarter is PROBABLY YES?

You see for generations there has been an underlying level of architects and engineers who well knew what was required in the documents to get the project built as designed and desired. Quietly these people produced the drawings and wrote the specs while the masters and the other principals got the glory, and cut the ribbons. This scenario still exists today!

Some may grump and quarrel that spec writers are not bona fide professionalswrong! Hogwash!, as Grandma said. Their work is as dedicated and is really more precise than that of others working on the projects. It is a tough and most ill-advised stretch to utilize the specs in the definition of contract documents and then in some incoherent, unthinking way, eliminate them from bare recognition, only to cherish and stake your reputation and legal status on them when you are in court. Vacillation? Nope, pure egotistic dumb! They are firmly based documents, supportive of the drawings and project design, and not veil-like images that come and go for varying reasons. They do not exist to be used as conveniences when necessary, and as door stops when not

NO project can be built using drawings only, and 
neither can any be built using specifications only 

By definition and by absolute cojoinery, drawings 
and specs must co-exist and provide a combined 
value and source of project information!  

WHY then is there on-going dismissive ness of specifications; a lack of understanding of their purpose; a lack of support for their value and preparation; and a continual disregard for their contribution? WHY?

Every organization that deals with any aspect of the professional practice of architecture [and lets include engineering] needs to be approached, addressed, [confronted if necessary] educated where necessary, and brought to bear on the issue of specifications and co-contribution of drawings and specificationsperiod!

All the cutesy software, the 3D models, the revolting images, the virtual projects and the other bells and whistles of project design MUST, at some point come to light in some form of specification. BIM is the new shtick-- the new do-all-end-all, but little is available that even begins to address how specification-like information [still vitally needed for the projects] is incorporated into the model. Is the use of links appropriate? Will links take one to a massive amount of irrelevant information? Who will refine and focus that information, reducing it to the cogent necessity? What must now be done to re-format the requisite construction information to fit the BIM program?

CSI has engaged this, we hear. But not a lot has come to bear of late, and certainly all the vociferous proponents of BIM have NEVER EVER mentioned this aspect of the modeling. WHY? In hopes it will go away? [scary thought!]

So blare the trumpet and let the games beginsound the call to a strong, well founded, direct, professional, astute initiative to engage all those involved in the construction process-- every group of architects, engineers, contractors, sub-contractor, IT folks, vendors, suppliers, manufacturers-- and present them with in-depth, incisive, decisive, and absolutely stunning information about specifications, their creation, use, impact and contribution!

And coincidently, and by no stretch the least, include NCARB, NAAB, ACSA and their engineering counterparts for full incorporation of at least minimal specification instruction in every professional school! That is far too long overdue and really should be placed on an immediately basis right now!

No rose-colored prospectus for the design professions, or high flutin principles, or visionary dreams should obscure the fact that we need to get everyone on board with all of this, NOW! We have too long phoofed away the true value and impact of specifications, in any format.

It is so easy!-- they are 1/3 of Contract Documents; they are co-equals with drawings; they are absolute necessities for every project!

You cannot practice, successfully, with one arm tied behind you or ignoring its existence.

[mchavez]

OK love the rant, but lets give FLW his due. The front columns at the Oak Park Studio contain a relief of “the tree of life, the book of knowledge and the specification” or so the tour guide told us. So that leads me to believe the old FLW took them seriously.

[Rliebing]

“…took them seriously”-- OK, Marc, I’ll give you that.

But I cannot in my wildest thoughts see FLLW stooping so low as to WRITE them!!!

And me thinks he was widely into the techniques of yelling instructions, waving arms, staring daggers and making threatening gestures with his cane [or baton, as you like it].