Government officials can engage with integrated projects in their roles as code officials, planning and zoning staff, and policy makers. Government agencies might also be owners seeking a method of procurement for a public project.
Code officials and planning and zoning staff may be peripherally involved with integrated projects through the permitting process. In order to balance environmental performance and their public health and safety concerns, they need to have a deep understanding of the health and safety benefits of green features. Government agencies can also act as owners interested in integrated design and delivery approaches for their public works projects. Since most jurisdictions have policies that require contracts to be awarded based on the lowest bid, policy makers have a role in reforming that legislation. Adopting state or provincial versions of the Brooks Act or following Colorado’s lead by adopting legislation similar to its Integrated Delivery Method for Public Project Act would greatly help remove these barriers.
We are deceiving ourselves by saying that low-bid is how we deliver value, but in many ways we have been so bound by our contracts. – Mark Palmer, City of San Francisco.
Key Points:
Public project owners might be interested in the value, cost, and schedule benefits that private owners are reporting from using integrated design and delivery approaches. As outlined in Integrated Project Delivery: An Owner’s Perspective, multiple owners in projects of different scales have had projects come in ahead of schedule and under budget (Ashcraft 2013). For example, Bellevue Hospital in New York was completed three months early and cost US$30 million less than initial project estimates. Since the entire team’s interests were aligned with the project goals, the outcome was more predictable, and the owner can be more confident of having gotten a project that meets its needs.
For code officials, integrated projects bring greater opportunities to provide input early and thus avoid what can sometimes devolve into adversarial relationships. When designers and builders know what potential issues they must navigate, they reduce the likelihood of being blindsided by a code issue after money and time has already been invested.
As one responsible for the public’s health and welfare, officials might also find relevant the approach’s potential to realize buildings that have less impact on the environment and that serve public health interests. The alignment process set out through this approach (steps 1 and 2 of this Guide) encourages the project team to think about all that a project has the capacity to achieve rather than make a checklist of a set of narrow goals. This opens the possibility for qualitative improvements. For example, the Sarah E. Goode Academy achieved LEED Gold even though it was programmed for LEED Silver. As team members, officials can participate in setting the targets and benefit from creative and innovative input from the team.
Key Points:
Many government agencies require that construction projects engage in a competitive bidding process and select contractors based primarily on cost. Professional services, however, such as the architect’s contract, are granted on a qualitative basis. This approach limits using one contract for both services unless granted by statutory authority. A committed agency might be able to find solutions to those limitations and incorporate at least some aspects of integrated design and delivery. Some alternative delivery methods, for example, might already provide one the statutory authority to incorporate IPD principles (Gehrig 2010):
These options may not allow the full incorporation of integrated design and delivery principles, but they allow profit to be tied to project performance, and most give authority to do a single contract. Alternatively, in the US, a project can always apply for a variance to contracting restrictions under the rationale that the project will be a pilot project for new processes (National Association 2010). This step might ultimately be important proof of concept for regulatory or statutory reform. Some public agencies are not subject to design-bid-build restrictions at all. These sometimes include local county water districts or transportation authorities. Furthermore, some states, including Colorado and Arizona, have adopted statutes that specifically give authority for IPD projects. If these options do not apply, it is still possible to incorporate the behavioral aspects of integrated design and delivery while making use of more traditional contracts (see Edith Green–Wendell Wyatt case study).
Public projects are sometimes restricted to design-bid-build, but there are ways around. You might find some flexibility with:
