Working methods are also evolving in response to the role construction must play in the ecological transition. Problem-solving approaches are becoming deeper and more cross-disciplinary, addressing issues that have often been overlooked - such as the need for resource efficiency, long-term thinking through life cycle analysis, diversity in modes of mobility, adaptation to the effects of climate change, and the restoration of biodiversity.
The digital transition - embodied notably by digital project models - calls for a new kind of collaboration between stakeholders and requires new skills.
This dual imperative - delivering environmental performance while integrating ever-evolving digital tools - has major implications on how we design. It greatly increases the importance of the early stages of a project and disrupts established routines: study planning and content, material specification and construction choices, project economics, and the need for earlier engagement with manufacturers and contractors.
These changes place very real demands on all actors: contracting authority (coordination of objectives, adequate planning and councelling to town officials), project owner, consultants, design team, and contractors.
Our approach facing these stakes
- Pioneering work * on building envelopes from mid 1990s, when the Passivhaus principles were launched in Germany, on the occasion of projects located in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and thereafter in the United Kingdom: ensuring the thermal continuity of an envelope in the three dimensional space most often involves insulation from the outside associated with ad hoc technical elements at singular points of the facade (front foot, facing support, balcony, parapet wall); double-flow ventilation could be associated with these projects, which is the only way to drastically reduce energy consumption while preserving air quality.
* Hence a recent participation in the Afnor technical commission (P10E) as an expert for the technique of the double wall with facing bricks: last revision of DTU 20.1 (released in July 2020), DTU 20.12 (coming soon), CTMNC guide on decorative brick masonry design (to come).
- To build the digital mock-up, we work with Autodesk REVIT software. For the practice of BIM, we refer to the contracts "BIM Manager" and "AMO BIM" drawn up in 2018 by the MAF with the FPI (Fédération des Promoteurs Immobiliers) which clarify the expectations laying on each parties.
- Experience in the process of collaborative work within the framework of design and build contracts in the United Kingdom and France, which means that we approach any project with significant and comparative feedback on practical and human aspects. Getting out of traditional patterns (general contracting) requires vigilance to avoid pitfalls:
• Knowing how to assess the level of information that is required in the early stage of a D&B contract (propensity to underestimate this level due to the incomplete nature of the detailed studies, and due to the schedule of design work agreed without having really consulted all the parties);
• Defining a management role in which a share in the productive tasks is requested so as to limit the non-productive tasks required from the other stakeholders, and therefore allow them to concentrate on the production of information and the solving of problems;
• Clearly define the content and frequency of the project (or site) meetings: the purpose of these meetings is not to reassure each other on all the matters but to be effective in solving problems: few participants are required;
• Avoid behaviors reproducing traditional roles (when the contract is not) or contractual entrenchment in the face of difficulties;
• Bearing in mind that designing is made of back and forth* which means accepting that project management will have to include these backs;
* We can thus realise, before it is too late, that an idea that seemed good and simple actually involves too many means and complexity or degrades the project, once it is formalised, and that it is better not to develop this idea.
- An experience of the « co-production of the service », that is to say working in real time with the client, professionals involved and contractors, a true value creation process. Adaptation is intrinsic to this service relationship and its necessity must be understood by the management level, which is too often not the case.
Awareness needed by all stakeholders
Tools are becoming more and more sophisticated but...
- Experience shows that synergy between professionals is never acquired, that it is not straightforward, including within a company with integrated skills, because the human factor remains essential (lack of appreciation of the project leader / business manager, motivation not shared, internal competition, disconnection between sales representatives and site operators, etc.
- The digital mock-up of the project has, as a corollary, a requirement of rigour with an appropriate level of accuracy from the start: it is no longer possible to draw up a schedule of studies (and therefore of the content of the documentation) without agreeing with all the stakeholders.
