SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF DESIGN ASSIST ON A LARGE CALIFORNIA HOSPITAL PROJECT

摘要

In the past few years, Design Assist has become one of the more popular project delivery methods (PDM). Design Assist consists of involving the contractor and key sub-contractors early in design to provide input in order to make the design more efficient and to streamline the construction process. The integrated approach early in design by the design team and the contractor helps reduce the risk of miscommunication that often leads to design inefficiency, costly redesign or construction errors. This paper presents the successful implementation of the design assist process as it relates to structural steel on the Palomar Medical Center (PMC), West hospital in Escondido, CA. The hospital is a twelve-story steel building with partial basement. The total area is approximately 750,000 ft~2. The building consists of many unique and complex areas such as a wavy-shaped green roof supported on 105 feet long -span trusses above operating rooms as well as heavily loaded healing gardens/terraces with long span cantilevers at the nursing tower. The rigorous state approval process for hospitals in California, as well the complexity of this project, made design assist even more compelling. Bi-weekly face-to-face team meetings and countless e-mails were used to discuss framing and detailing of unique areas of the building. These meetings happened in a collaborative and interactive environment. The project team's chemistry, level of trust, as well as their commitment and creativity, led to the success of the design assist PDM on this project. The use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) also facilitated the identification of complex details that required input by the steel subcontractor. The success of the structural steel design assist process on this project resulted in a more efficient design that reduced cost and accelerated schedule. The steel structure was completed with a savings of 7.2 million dollars out of the originally estimated budget of 52.8 million dollars, and the original 13 months schedule was reduced by 6 weeks. In addition, the project was completed with zero change orders and cut the RFFs by an estimated factor of four.