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Summary: The Problem
Each subcontractor is more or less free to use his own judgment in
finding the shortest route between two points, and much of the detailed
coordination between subcontractors is worked out in the field on an
ad hoc basis. The result is a building which is awkward and costly in
routine maintenance and repair, let alone in growth and change.
3. The lack of pre-coordination between manufactured products, and the
lack of discipline in the layout of service subsystems, are serious
deterrents to the development of prefabricated assemblies.
Manufactures are unwilling to commit themselves to mass production
of large complex units as long as interface conditions within buildings
are essentially unpredictable from their point of view.
4. The conventional design approach has emphasized highly optimized
opening configurations and the measure of planning efficiency in terms
of gross-to-net-area ratios and the like. Thus, it has encouraged a
design process in which many detailed architectural decisions are
made prior to serious consideration of structural and service
distribution requirements. The result has been very complex structures
and service networks tailor-made for the opening configuration but
severely restrictive to alteration.
5. Buildings are often evaluated during construction and occupation, but
evaluation procedures are usually not specifically structured for
maximum return of useful information, either to the original designer or
to A/E's working on current similar building projects. Thus many
design deficiencies are repeated, even though they may have been
identified. Without specific feedback procedures for introducing
improvements in design and construction, innovation is painfully slow,
depending largely on the limited personal experience of individual
designers.
6. Conventional design procedures are highly linear, requiring a complete
program before design can begin, and a complete preliminary design
before working drawings can begin. Furthermore, architectural design
is developed to a considerable level of detail before engineering design
is started. The people responsible for each phase do most of their
work independently, rather than as a team. This type of process is
time-consuming and makes coordination difficult.
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