A construction document set is an argument. Construction administration is where the argument is either won or quietly conceded, one substitution request at a time.
We stay on our jobs through submittal and shop-drawing review, site observation, RFI response and the punch walk. The point is not to be difficult about substitutions — some are genuinely better — but to evaluate them against the performance criteria in the specification rather than against the price alone.
It also closes the loop on the drawings. Nobody learns faster what a detail is missing than the designer who drew it standing in front of the millwork it produced.
Because the same firm carries the project from space planning through furniture installation, there is one point of accountability for the developer, the architect and the general contractor. That is worth more on a fast schedule than any single design decision.
Linda Witt, RID, IIDA
Owner & Principal Designer
