Posted by Derek Leavitt on Tue, Jan 12, 2010 @ 11:20 AM
Instead of publishing my personal resolutions for 2010, I thought I'd fill you in on what Modative has in store for 2010.
1. Integrated Project Delivery
Here at Modative, we're never mistaken for traditionalists. I'm not just talking about our architectural style, but the way we do everything. This is why we are committed to further moving away from the traditional design-bid-build process into integrated project delivery. We feel that this new way of delivering projects to our clients not only distinguishes us from the competition, but makes the process easier on our clients, contractors and even us.
And since we're not looking to procrastinate on our 2010 resolutions, we've already added a section on Integrated Project Delivery to our website so you can see what it's all about.
2. Beyond Architecture
In more and more of our projects, clients have been asking us to go beyond our core architecture services to provide them with many of the other things that go into getting a project built.
Why? Because coordinating with one person (Modative) is much easier than coordinating with ten different consultants. We also prefer this one-stop-shop service because it further enables us to deliver the finished project as envisioned. A glimpse of what we can provide can be found on our services beyond architecture page. | 
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3. Modative Build
When we founded Modative, one of our primary company goals was so important to us that we put it on our business cards. Instead of "Architecture", we used the tag line "Design, Develop, Build." And while we have assisted with development decisions on the Venice Boulevard Urban Dwellings and Fay Avenue Art District Dwellings, we haven't yet acted as the contractor on one of our projects. That will soon change as I'm proud to announce that Modative Build will be launching this year.
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4. Small Lot Subdivision
When I tell people I'm an architect, they often ask, "So, do you do houses or (commercial) buildings". "Both" I answer.
Our firm has always kept our project types diverse: a fairly even split between residential and commercial. And within the residential category, there has been a healthy mix of single-family and multi-family projects. However, if there's one project type that we've done more than any other, it's clearly Small Lot Subdivision, which is really a hybrid between homes and condos. We've continued to pursue and take on these Small Lot Projects because we believe in them as the future of residential development in Los Angeles (and a lot of other places).
To show our further commitment to this unique project type, we've expanded our Small Lot Subdivision online presence with a new Small Lot Subdivision Blog and a free guide on the basics of developing Small Lot Subdivision Projects in Los Angeles.
Sample diagram from the Small Lot Subdivision Guide
Posted by Derek Leavitt on Thu, Feb 05, 2009 @ 12:15 PM
We've all heard the story too many times now. Banks tighten up lending, the stock market tanks, housing prices fall, etc. etc. This downturn has no doubt affected just about everyone, but cetainly the building industry has been one of the hardest hit by the economic crisis.
Saving Projects
Although not all building projects have been saved from this downturn, we at Modative have utilized a strategy to keep most of our projects moving forward in this time of uncertainty: SIMPLIFICATION.
Value Engineering
Several of our projects have called for a "simplification" of their designs to lower construction prices and regain feasibility in this new market reality. This "simplification" of a building's design is what we in the industry typicially call "value engineering". Value engineering is esentially reducing the construction cost of a building by changing it's design, quality or both. Although this often has a bad connotation in the architecture world, we have been happy with the results of the few projects in the office that have recently undergone some value engineering.In the coming weeks we'll post updates to the designs of these two projects.
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Venice Boulevard Urban Dwellings
| Fashion Square Car Wash |
The Timing of Design Changes
The reason the value engineering of these buildings has gone so well has everything to do with timing and our approach to project management. Often times in a traditional architecture process, the contractor is not brought into the project until late in the game, after the project has been almost fully designed and most of the technical drawings complete.
Get a Contractor Involved
We at Modative learned long ago that this traditional architect/contractor relationship is often risky because you don't really know realistic building costs until most of the architecture is done. Architects are good a number of things. Estimating market-rate construction costs, however, is better left to contractors. For this reason, we prefer to bring a contractor on early and often to give feedback on real construction costs throughout each step in the architecture process. This means that if the project is over budget or you have a massive shift in the market (as we have recently witnessed), adjustments in the design can be made much faster, easier, and with minimal cost to the project owner. The alternative of changing a project's design when its far along in the process can be very expensive and unpleasant for everyone involved.
A comparision of our typical approach to contractor involvement versus the traditional design/bid/build approach. Learn more about the architecture phases by downloading our free guide. Starting a New Project
Now that we are in a down market, we feel that this approach that we have embraced enables us to handle the tighter budgets that many new projects now face. Having a contractor around to give cost feedback throughout the process is critical to keeping things on budget. We work with several contractors that can provide this service to our clients even if the client does not want to commit to using that contractorfor the actual construction.
Design Changes
In the coming weeks we'll be posting a few examples of our projects that have undergone some value engineering design changes to adapt to this new economic climate.