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School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering Assessment Brief

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Module Code: 21CVP324 Module Name: Design Management Assessment Title:

Conceptual Design Management and Design Planning

Assessment Type: Report Other: Oral Presentation Component (TBC)

Date Due: Tuesday

Monday 23rd May 2022 at 1000

Date Returned:

Monday 13th June 2022

Method of Submission

Virtual only Feedback delivery:

E-mail

Weighting: 50% Other: Individual or Group:

Group

Word Length Other Other: 35 sides of A4 in total (plus individual components and A3 attachments)

Total number of hours expected to the spent on assignment:

45

Assessment aims:

The aim of this coursework is to understand how to manage the building design process by playing the role of a team of design management consultants critiquing a conceptual design proposal (RIBA: Stage 2: Concept Design) in response to a fictional brief.

Your group is then required to develop a plan for undertaking the subsequent schematic design of your proposed building, based on the Analytical Design Planning Technique. As part of this task, your team should undertake the following:

1. Produce a model of the schematic design process that represents the main design activities associated with the building elements (and spaces they create) and information flows between them. (Not submitted or directly assessed.)

2. Carry-out a dependency structure matrix (DSM) analysis of the model to determine a suitable design sequence and the necessary decisions which must be made. (Not submitted or directly assessed.)

3. Propose a design plan for undertaking this design phase. (Not submitted or directly assessed.)

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Task Description:

You need to carry out the following:

1. Design Critique. A design brief is provided, along with a sketchy RIBA Stage 2 design proposal (preliminary drawings, specification and a client cost plan). As a team, you need to prepare a RIBA Stage 2 report, in which you review the design and propose revisions before Stage 2 is signed off. 1.1. Critique the integration between the architectural design and other design aspects and

propose revisions to the architectural proposal 1.2. Critique the integration between the structural design and other design aspects and

propose revisions to the structural proposal 1.3. Critique the integration between the building services design and other design aspects and

propose revisions to the building services proposal 1.4. Critique the constructability of the overall proposal and propose revisions to the design and

construction methods.

2. Design Management Strategy (Individual). As an individual, set out a design management strategy for subsequent design stages. Each individual to submit a one-page strategy with individual name clearly marked, and all individual reports appended to the group report.

3. Design Economics, Cost Planning, Value Engineering. The design proposal provided includes an elemental cost plan for the proposed building. This represents the understanding of cost distributions at the start of the conceptual design process. The project is now at the end of the conceptual design process and requires an updated cost plan to reflect the current design solution. Perform the following tasks. 3.1. Design Economics component: Use design economics principles to identify one building

element that, in your opinion, will benefit from value engineering (design optimisation). Write a short explanation (c. 500 words) of how you used Design Economics principles to focus your attention when reviewing the proposed design.

3.2. Value Engineering component: 3.2.1. Use function analysis and other relevant value engineering methods to analyse the

design of the one building element selected in §3.1 above. Use the understanding of required functionality that you develop to inform the proposition of an alternative design solution (this may be less expensive or more functional than the current proposal).

3.2.2. Develop the alternative design solution proposed in §3.2.1 above. This design revision is to be documented under the “architectural/structural/building-services critique” section of your report. It will not receive marks in this part of this assessment, but will receive marks elsewhere. For the submission, submit as many analytical diagrams, lists and/or tables as required to illustrate how you performed this analysis and its content. Also submit a short description (c. 300 words) explaining how you produced the analysis: the sequence in which each part was performed, and so on. An explanation of the principles of these methods is not required, nor is an explanation of why they were used. A short description of how they were used, and the results, is however required.

3.3. Cost Planning component: Using one suitably rebased cost analysis (sourced from the BCIS Online using the website link provided on Learn), update the elemental cost plan

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provided to represent the current design proposal. When updating the cost plan, ensure that you rebase all figures for: time, location, size, specification, and any other aspects of the design, specification or construction context that you think will affect the costs.

3.3.1. Submit an updated elemental cost plan and outline specification in the NRM1 format. 3.3.2. Submit a copy of the cost analysis that has informed your analysis and cost plan

revisions. 3.3.3. Submit all supporting computations performed. This must contain sufficient notes

and annotations explaining the logic of these various calculations.

4. Design planning: 4.1. Design process modelling.

You will be given a generic WBS model in tabular form. Review the generic model table and cross reference activities to the design proposal using reference numbers. Some adjustments will be needed to the generic model to reflect our particular building. These could simply be some changes in terminology, but also where elements or information flows are missing. Annotate your printout clearly to indicate additions, d deletions or revisions. Where you add a task, you must also include relevant information flows.

Note that the nature of each information dependency can be indicated as follows:

1. Important (critical). If an assumption is made about this information (such as an estimate of a load or location of an element in the building) you will have to go back and check that assumption, and definitely do some redesign.

2. Nice to have (non-critical). Assumptions can be made about this information and although you might expect to go back and check that assumption, you would not expect to do any redesign.

3. Assumed (non-critical). Normally an Important dependency where an assumption has been agreed, but can also be a Nice-to-have where an assumption has been agreed.

Assumptions can be made in such a way that they do not have to lead to redesign e.g. estimates can include a margin for error, or be fixed. If this is done, an extra cost is added to the project through over-design or a loss of design flexibility. Where this cost or loss is unacceptable, the assumption should not be applied and the dependency should remain Important. These trade-offs will be considered when you are undertaking the next stage of DSM analysis.

4.2. Dependency structure matrix (DSM) analysis (Not submitted or directly assessed.) 4.2.1. You will be given a group account to access the Adept Flow online platform, in which

the generic WBS model is embedded. Log in to the system as a group and work through the tutorial provided, without saving your work.

4.2.2. Now restart your work using the fresh generic model and edit the model online to introduce the changes you identified in 4.1 above.

4.2.3. View and print the initial un-optimized matrix by taking a screenshot(s) and pasting it in to an MS Word document. Then run the optimisation function to optimise the activity order. Capture a screenshot of the resulting matrix. Inspect the result and make notes of your observations (e.g. what you did and didn't expect).

4.2.4. You will see that the result contains a relatively large block or blocks of iterative activity. Your main task in this stage is to declassify some less critical dependencies (1 to 2/3, or 2 to 3) in order to get a manageable design solution. Keep a record of these de-classifications and your logic/justification in the software and hand-written notes and screen-print the revised matrix after each one. Go through a series of

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declassification steps until you are happy the process has been broken down to a manageable level. Remember that although the software’s tearing advice may offer effective de-classifications, not all of these will be acceptable; you must use your judgement. Also record declassifications you rejected and the reasoning.

4.2.5. Finally in this stage you should create a scenario anticipating a change to the optimised sequence of tasks. Then simulate this change by moving a task in the DSM to another point (but not inside a block). See what effect this has and capture a screenshot. Then identify what decisions (and associated declassifications) must be made to resolve the impact (of creating a larger or new block). Capture your rationale.

4.3. Scheduling (Not submitted or directly assessed.) When you have completed your optimisation and declassification you should produce a design schedule (bar chart). You can do this by selecting Gantt form the left-hand menu. (You will need to enter realistic estimates for durations for each task.)

You should endeavour to consider the task order within the blocks and be certain to augment the design tasks with appropriate design management tasks:

4.4. Individual Critical appraisal. (Only assessed work from task 4 and subtasks.) As an individual, set out an evidence-based appraisal of using ADePT in design management based upon your learning from related parts of the module, the coursework and personal experiences. Each individual should submit a two-age report appended to the group report. You might consider: the need for improved management of design, and how new methods may (or may not) help; the challenges of modelling design effectively; the impact on decision making; and/or any other aspect you feel appropriate. More challenging and critical considerations should lead to higher marks. This can be a scholarly critical appraisal, with references.

Assessment Criteria:

Architectural critique and revisions 15% Structural critique and revisions Building Services critique and revisions Constructability critique and revisions Design Economics Analysis0F1 5% Value Engineering1F2 10% Cost Planning2F3 10%

1 Appropriate rules of thumb have been applied appropriately to the design. 2 The tools and techniques adopted are capable of rigorously structuring the analysis of functionality and have been used to provide a clear definition of the functionality required of the design solution. The analysis does not describe what the design is and only describes what it must do, represented by functionality. The results of the analysis are appropriate to the nature of the building element and its proposed concept design solution. The analysis is sufficiently detailed to allow a designer to develop an alternative solution. Recall that marks for the design content of the proposed revisions is assessed elsewhere (architectural/structural/building-services critique).

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Individual Design Management Strategy 10% ind.)

Individual Critical Appraisal: Quality of insights and depth of knowledge and understanding, critique of learning experience, specific conclusions

50% (ind.)

The student team presentations in Week 11 will be assessed separately, as follows:

• Oral delivery 40% • Team salesmanship 30% • Team rapport with audience (client) 30%

The group mark (as broken down above, without the 10% + 50% individual components of the report) will be modified by a Web-PA assessment with a weight of 50%. The Web-PA assessment categories will be: responsiveness to communications, completing fair share of work and proposing original design ideas.

Submission Details:

• The report must be submitted as a single PDF document for the whole group with the individual components appended to the group component by Monday 23rd May 2022 at 1000.

• You must ensure you undertake your WebPA peer assessment between 0900 on 24th May and 09000 on 31st May 2022.

• Feedback will be provided within three weeks from submission.

3 The elemental cost plan has been updated as required to reflect the characteristics of the proposed design. The analysis follows the RICS New Rules of Measurement (NRM1). All supporting calculations (rebasing and other adjustments for specification, size, and so forth) are logical and are clearly explained and illustrated. The cost analysis used to inform the analysis was appropriate.