“You employ stone, wood and conrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and I say: “This is beautiful.” That is Architecture. Art enters in.” Le Corbusier

Welcome to the rform blog – Substantial Performance!  We named it Substantial Performance because we believe that it is one of the most important finish lines that all Project teams race towards in the construction of any project and to get there you need to know your Contract Administration (CA). However when many Architects first started their careers,  did they realize that CA was just as important as the design?

Many Architectural careers probably started with all of those Brady Bunch re-runs watched as kids.  (I loved those open tread stairs off the living room).  Or maybe it was reading books on famous Architects like LeCorbusier  where it seemed life as an Architect only consisted of designing and making  pilgrimages to the Cathedrals of Europe, Museums, or any significant work of Architecture. So eventually the career decision is made to go to Architecture School, get registered and begin work as an Architect.

“Did the General Contractor make a mistake, he sent me 6 copies of the Shop drawings!?”

Needless to say, school doesn’t prepare one for Contract Administration. No one is ready to be inundated by RFI’s from a contractor.  Does everyone really understand the “Change Order” process? Did you take enough accounting in school to perform the calculations and check a “Certificate for Payment” (thankfully everyone on the project is honest). There is not much designing going on when most of people’s time is being taken up managing and organizing project Contract Administration.

Some of us have also visited buildings that have been published to rave reviews only to be disappointed in person by the quality and detailing of the building that seemed to be far from satisfactory. I wondered more then once if anyone on the Architectural team ever did a final walk through some of these “famous” buildings, or were they too lazy to follow through with the deficiencies on the punch list?

It is our goal with this blog to show the important role contract administration and other construction processes have in realization of good Architectural design. We believe that for good design to be realized, the Architect requires a strong understanding and organization of the building process and in particular Contract Administration.

We also hope to show that Contract Administration in Architecture is interesting and can be inspiring. Our goal is to post at least once per month, and Blog topics will include but not be limited to Basics of Contract Administration, Reviews on notable Architecture and Architects, Architectural History, Productivity and Organization, Sustainable design, Digital trends, Specifications and of course tips and hints on using Rform for your Contract Administration.

We welcome any comments, opinions,suggestions for future posts or guest bloggers.  Let us know.

The Team @ Rform