Building your business case for a renovation project

First, I want to start with a look at the word "renovation" and what it actually means. Wikipedia gives the following definition: Renovation (also called remodeling) is the process of improving broken, damaged, or outdated structures.

That's pretty spot on. When you hear the term "renovation" outside of an architecture firm or engineering studio, you may think of an older kitchen in need of some love. Maybe it's a bedroom that's being added for a new family member, or even an aging one you want to be closer. Closer to home here in Nebraska, it could be that you need to renovate part of a structure after storm damage this week.

The definition also extends to what we do inside the studio or office. Why else would a client spend money, time, and resources renovating an existing structure? There is always some reason behind it.

In each of the cases I outlined above, the process starts with some type of need

However, it isn't actually the need that drives the renovation. There is an underlying business case that someone will put together in all of the examples I mentioned above. Yes, even in the home renovation example; albeit probably a more informal process.

As an architect or engineer part of your role is to act as a consultant to your clients.

Once there is a possible need, you'll be asked to conduct an assessment.

There are cases when after you walk a site the business case is obvious. The tree fell on the house and there is physical damage to the kitchen for example.

In commercial projects, there is typically alot more legwork and data involved. Let's look at a contemporary example that has had a lot of impact in the news recently.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge is designed to let 30,000+ people/day pass between Baltimore & one of the busiest ports in the US more efficiently.

When making the business case it makes sense to start by looking at the direct cost impacts first

The primary purpose of building a bridge is usually to shorten the distance between two points. So let's start by looking at the difference with and without the bridge:

1. The Francis Scott Key Bridge averaged 30,000 cars per day crossing.
2. An alternate route adds an additional 4-5 miles to the same trek

That means that drivers are spending an additional 120,000-150,000 miles / day on the same commute each way. We can double this, use some round numbers in the middle and say that we are adding an additional 250,000 miles per day commuted in the local area.

We can add some financial impact to this now. Let's go best case scenario and assume that no one drives a pickup or SUV. According to Wikipedia, the average North American car average 21mpg when you exclude the categories above (again, we are playing with ballpark numbers and going conservative on estimates). That means:

1. We are burning an additional 11,904 gallons of gas per day on just the car traffic increases
2. With the Baltimore average of $3.60/gallon, there is an estimated $42,857 per day spent on fuel.

That means that consumers have spent an additional $2.4 million since this disaster occurred.

$2.4 million seems like a large amount of money

However, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated $1-5 Billion cost to repair the bridge.

Context is everything when building your business case.

As an architect or engineer you are a consultative resource to your client. I chose the bridge example because it's easy to see the many other indirect impacts:

• All maritime traffic in/out of the port has stopped due to the incident. That means an estimated $15 million of daily economic activity is halted.

It's been closed for 57 days at the time I'm writing this, that's a staggering $840 million! You are already at 84% of the low end estimate with no end in site to the financial bleeding. I used this example because it's easy to see why the federal government stepped in so quickly and promised funds for reconstruction of the bridge!

However, that may only account for 17% of the cost if the reconstruction hits the $5B mark. In this case most people agree that this infrastructure project is necessary. However when these two numbers alone are presented side by side, it's easy to see why an owner may be skeptical. Especially due to the prevalence of price creep on large projects.

When the stakeholder team is not aligned, you can help build consensus by understanding your clients drivers and presenting hard evidence or data to help them decide.

Remember to understand what factors will influence their decision.

Then present your data accordingly!

Here are some quick tips:

Remember, you are a consultative resource.

When presenting options to your client, consider the Psychology of Choice. It may be helpful to show optionality in smaller groups that you've done some pre-vetting on.

Gallery views are great way to present a quick showcase. Highlight the most important details and add a manufacturer's finish. Many clients will appreciate data presented this way because it lets them get straight to the facts they care most about.

However, some clients will want full access to an entire dataset

Their reasons may be to do an asynchronous review, they may want to provide someone with a budget for planning purposes, etc. In this case a classic tabular view is a great way to share data. Just remember to share with the right access levels if you intend the document to be view-only!

In the AEC space however, we often need to bring our ideas to life beyond just a spreadsheet or simple cards. There are two really great ways that you can attach a better insight into spatial visibility when presenting data:

Connect your data directly with your space

Showcasing data on top of a floorplan or model brings context to the project. It lets the client visualize better the proposed work.

Many choose to use a more document oriented layout to accomplish the same task. This allows the viewer to quickly see the area in question, some key facts, and maybe budgetary info summarized.

Sometimes you just need to give your client a well laid out custom report or data sheet with all of the facts in one place.

A custom report can be the tool your client needs to build consensus with other stakeholders. Here's an example of a quick document layout that combines spatial data with key information, and relevant budgetary information.

This can be a tedious and time consuming process if you're still using tools like Word or Indesign to create data sheets or reports. There is alot of copy and pasting involved.

My conclusion: If your firm is still doing any of these tasks with alot of ctrl-c, ctrl-v there is a better way.

Some firms will have a BIM Manager or Design Tech professional create a Dynamo script to get them halfway there. To save even more time you can look to off the shelf tool such as Layer which has a built in document generator linked to Revit and tabular data.