I must admit I find myself disagreeing with many of the comments made here thus far. Assuming conventional A201 application:
All required submittals (as stated in the Code and/or Specifications/Project Manual) must be reviewed.
An Informational submittal must be reviewed, but does not need to be stamped, returned, or otherwise responded to unless there is cause, such as the low break results in a concrete cylinder test.
Action submittals must be returned to the contractor marked with an appropriate action. The word Reviewed does not provide direction and does not indicate the appropriate action. The A201 says, .shall review AND take appropriate action. The reviewers stamp must indicate what that action is. The word Approved is completely acceptable and appropriate, as the limitations of the approval are in your contract (or should be!). A lessor term, but still sufficiently strong to provide direction to the contractor is Furnish as Submitted (or Furnish as Commented). Insurers who advocate something weaker are simply fooling themselves, and no one else.
I am not aware of a standardized contract provision that allows architects to completely delegate responsibility to a consulting engineer. If you arent reviewing structural, mechanical, or electrical submittals for general conformance to the architectural intent, then I would argue that you are not practicing the appropriate level of care. The Architect must review all required submittals.
Overstamping is another frequently debated topic. Should an Architect provide a review stamp on a submittal that has already been stamped by a consulting engineer? Sure, why not? The intent of our review is defined in the contract, and, the architect is required to review the submittal already so there is no harm in overstamping. However, as a general practice, I myself do not overstamp UNLESS I have added additional comments/clarifications to the submittal. A good example would be an electrical lighting submittal, where the color of fixtures must be selected or defined. Since I am adding those comments to the submittal, I also add my submittal review stamp to the submittal. But, if a client or CM or some other entity requires the architect to overstamp all submittals, it does not increase my liability to do so because I AM reviewing these submittals anyway.
Assuming the use of AIA A201 and where architect is prime design consultant (engineering and other consultants under architect’s contract), I agree with Nathan.
I also don’t think design mixes should be categorized as an informational submittal as Mark points out. Test results yes, but not design mixes which have specification requirements to be reviewed for conformance.
I always stamped submittals that were reviewed by outside consultants. The Architect is the third party design entity per the general conditions. If only the consulting engineer has stamped a submittal, the contractor could say “I don’t have a reviewed submittal” and refuse to act since the architect’s consultants are not recognized by the contract. Kind of like having only the subcontractor look at a submittal and not the contractor.
Great question. I always felt that Coordination Drawings were strictly for the Contractor’s use. Very often Structural and MEP have wanted to see them, especially to make sure cores drilled through decks don’t hit critical rebar or worse, tendons. With the new layout software programs available to subs, I don’t see why I would want to get in the middle of how they coordinate above-ceiling spaces or similar conditions. If it doesn’t work, and we left them enough room, that’s their problem to solve.
My preference is that Coordination Drawings are typically only looked at as part of the RFI process to show me that the Contractor has at least tried to solve whatever it is that they perceive as a problem. If needed we can issue a Contract Modification to clarify intent but the Coordination Drawings don’t get comments. Bottom line, I don’t want to see Coordination Drawings as a submittal, certainly not as one requiring action.
Coordination drawings also do something else, Ken. They tend to limit the RFIs since the subs actually coordinated the work with the contractor. I agree that that comments are rare, but at times they miss a coordination issue and to avoid the “fix” in the field comments may be needed. Hate it when those ducts or sprinkler lines go below the ceiling and not in the plenum…
Precisely why I require that the Contractor show that they have produced Coordination Drawings before submitting RFIs. If they can show me that they’ve made a reasonable attempt to solve the problem, the RFI is no longer bogus and it’s time to sit down together and work things out. I see them as a way for the Contractor to meet us halfway.
I just don’t want to see them as a submittal. Some folks I’ve spoken with like getting them ‘for the record’ just so they can believe that the Contractor is doing what they’re supposed to be doing. I don’t have that kind of time. It’s the Contractor’s self-help tool. They can keep them in their files unless it becomes a problem.
As with informational submittals you should make it clear the extent of your review of coordination drawings. Could you be responsible if you did not identify a coordination issue that later caused problems?
Looked into the original question a great deal with CA group, and the only problem needing further adjustment in our masters was setting a time period for review, simply stating that it would be the same time period as for other submittals. Otherwise they would not know when to proceed.
If they will be processed correctly, leaving items in the informational submittals category in the specifications can be a good time saving tool.
If you don’t believe there is the need to review something, don’t classify it as informational submittal, why ask for it at all? Read your Division 01 on this subject and make up your own minds as to what you policy should be, I’m not giving legal advice.
Regarding coordination dwgs, I thought I had seen specs where they were their own article or somewhere else outside of submittals. But looking at the current ACP spec, I must have thought wrong. Interestingly, SectionFormat/PageFormat doesn’t appear to say where to specify coordination drawings.
I like your idea Ken about having the coordination drawings done before RFIs.
I’ve been bitten with coordination drawings in the past. We had a client that required that they be submitted and the Contractor came back and insisted that they be reviewed. The nightmare of having to defend ourselves against our (federal government!) client was as bad as or worse than the Contractor.
Something about it better having smart enemies than stupid friends…
“Interestingly, SectionFormat/PageFormat doesn’t appear to say where to specify coordination drawings.”
Per SectionFormat, I would consider coordination drawings as “Special Procedure Submittals” for lack of a better reference. SectionFormat does not classify submittals as either being action or informational–that is for the design professional to decide.
However, the CCA Practice Guide does consider them informational submittals, which is typical.
Maybe this is an item for future coordination between the two documents.
I agree that coordination drawings are informational as they speak to the Contractor’s means and methods. However, they should be at least looked at by the Design professional’s CA team for possible problems that could be headed off before there is an issue.
The contractor and others need to be explicitly clear what will be done with the Coordination drawings. I am uncomfortable with asking for a submittal and not reviewing it.
Why do we need to have a new category of submittals? If you have defined the content of the submittal and what will be done with it by the Owner/designers why do we need to call these submittals “coordination submittals”?
I am not sure how best to classify coordination drawings but sometimes the reason for the design professional to ask see them is to make sure the trades are actually coordinating the work. On some jobs “first in, I win!” can become a huge problem. We may not even review them (because it could be argued that the coordination drawings are means and methods) but we feel that we need to make sure the coordination is being attempted by the trades.
In a similar vain, we often ask to see the “as-built” drawings during the middle of a project. Not to review them but to ensure that the information is being recorded and isn’t simply being retained in some guys head.
Actually we should only be checking to make sure that the Record Documentation is being done. We shouldn’t be checking content unless that’s in our Agreement. If we’re not preparing the Record Docs, I’m not sure we want to touch them until the end of the Project.
As for the coordination drawings, I’m still opposed to wholesale reviews. They are not submittals, they are the Contractor’s internal tool. If you review them, you’re taking on means and methods. It’s one thing to require confirmation that the Contractor is creating the documents, it’s another to receive, handle and review them. Once they cross your threshold and you acknowledge that you’re keeping them, how much liability are you accepting?
What if you do, or don’t, catch a mistake on coordination drawings? Are you now the project superintendent? Can you force the GC to do it ‘your way?’ No. You can wait until they perform the work and reject it if it’s wrong.
Sounds like CSI needs to set up some in-depth sessions with insurance carriers.
Nathan: you are correct and this is what we do for bigger projects, but on some of our smaller school jobs there is a PR in June, no board mtg in July so no PR and then a PR in August. There is no as-built to speak of in June and by the August pay-out the job is almost complete and some of the trade superintendents are already moving on the next project.
This is the type of situation I was referring to where we would be asking for a look at as-builts in the middle of a project. Sorry my post was not very clear about that.