Case Study: Master Plan for New Product Testing Center

” Practicing Architecture –  Personal Experiences ” (4)

a series of articles by

Michael Perciali, AIA, NCARB, OAR, LEED GA
Architect Planner Designer, Visiting Lecturer

• Master Plan will combine all functional groups with their needed support functions in buildings and grounds.
• Parking, loading, access, etc are identified and the needed lot area is verified for current and future expansion needs.
• Note, the process block (core) is in its entirety imported in the design file from the process technology group. For them, this is the only component important for the job; however we architects demonstrated how the process core depends on others for support, such as: engineering, supervisors, toilet-lockers, cafeteria, visitors, logistics, training, utilities, etc.
• Customer himself was surprised to see how they become a team working together at cross purposes.
• Also note, in most cases, we the architects on a job are the only design professionals literate on CAD, and that gives us the advantage of being able to put together all the components of a building including these developed by technology consultants, materials and systems vendors’ data. Cad GA (general arrangement) is also helping us documenting building and life safety codes compliances.

Do not be intimidated by customer’s trial and error producing design documents. Review them and identify deficiencies in a constructive way. See example below:

Customer’s initial proposal – may not be the right start – in this example, it does not show / solve access, roads, flows for employees and visitors.  Block sizes are based on previous projects, not on the current project needs. During a professional planning job, the goal is to move the design step by step in the right direction, such as identifying:

Site access, interior circulation, emergency egress paths, separation of functions, proper sizes of each functional unit, right location of functional units and their support groups, adjacencies, flows for visitors, employees, goods and compliance with all codes and regulatory.  In our proposal, building massing with proposed finishes are developed with customer’ branding in mind for each site considered, multiple site options are being reviewed, see below:

These documents above, once approved by user’s management, along with drawings and specs (outline specs or design criteria doc for each engineering discipline) – becomes part of the BoD (Basis of Design) document.  BoD should be detailed enough to become the basis for a preliminary probable cost estimate for the proposed facility. Once the budget and schedule met Customer’s financial planning, the BoD is moving into construction documents in one of multiple forms of project delivery method, such as: DB (design built) traditional design – bid – built, CM (construction management), Cost plus fee, or T&M (time and material ) not to exceed an agreed upon amount.

Tools used for a preliminary design phase of any facility project

1. Equipment list – both process and process support equipment – this will determine the size of a facility should that be equipment driven facility (hospital, restaurant, chemical, bio-pharma, consumer’s goods, etc.
2. Headcount (HC) per department – this will determine: parking, toilets, offices, cafeteria, etc.
3. Excel spreadsheet space allocation using the equipment list and the required space allocated for equipment use and maintain.
4. Same procedure is used for offices, use HC, salary grades and corporate office standards to derive the size of the Adm and its support components.
5. Bubble (block) diagram is essential in determining adjacencies among main users, visitors, processes, support, in a horizontal or a vertical relationship or both.
6. Room data sheets – recommended for these facilities that involve lots of MEP (mechanical, electrical, piping) support, and these clean operations requiring agency validation before opening (food process, bio-pharma, heath care, data centers, etc.)
7. Order of Magnitude cost estimate – mostly done on a per m2 basis and type of space. Make sure your equipment consultant will estimate the cost of all pieces of equipment on the job. The cost probability level should be 25%-50% plus or minus.