Why do we constrain ourselves by focusing on new builds?

If you studied architecture, engineering, even software development you're very familiar with unconstrained building. Those on the architecture side will remember the sleepless nights cutting up cardstock, dowels, and other art supplies to create physical models of your vision. The software developers here at Layer all created binary based calculators. Those in engineering seemed to have the most interesting (and often destructive) projects creating strange race cars or bridges that were tested to the limit.

The reason we do this is because it's a low impact way for budding technologists to learn what NOT to do before they get to the real world. The negative impact from a toothpick bridge collapse is simply a loss of time and a few dollars worth of supplies. There isn't $$$ in stock transactions riding on a binary calculator. A rushed sun study doesn't impact an actual human in the office if you're building a model out of card stock.

This approach is correct, but broken at the same time! Building stock is aging which means as an AEC professional, you'll work on more renovations than new builds.

We're all familiar with the paradigm of shiny and new. We buy new phones every few years, a new appliance when it breaks. Today we live in a very disposable society. Even the most common capital purchase of a car goes through the same calculus: is it cheaper and easier to repair, or simply replace?

That calculation is different when it comes to buildings.

First, a building is much more expensive than any other item in our day to day lives. And that cost is rising. Even when you account for inflation and buying power.

Building stock also continues to age!

I'll concentrate on the United States residential housing stock since that's the example we started with. You're probably familiar with this as well from living in a building as well.

The numbers are different, but the trends are similar if you look at most other building types, geographic locations, and trends. Buildings age: things get old, and they break! Just like a car, a building is made up of different products. When a sink, toilet, or window brakes, you don't just "buy a new house." Instead, it's much more cost effective to renovate! Even when the needs of a building change we often build an addition or repurpose an existing space.

The calculus for commercial building owners is the same. Reuse is more common than new construction for a reason.

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

In some markets, you have almost unconstrained spatial limitations and very little regulation as to what can be built where (Houston I'm looking at you). When a building no longer suits it's purpose, it's often much cheaper to tear down the existing structure and start from scratch.

The population will continue to grow, but land & resources won't.

So, why do we as AEC professionals focus so much on the "New" part of construction? My suspicion: it goes back to the "shiny" aspect. New buildings are a way to showcase the ultimate in creativity. They're a blank slate, and you can do anything with them.

The reality is, most of your work will be on existing facilities. And that can be much harder to showcase to perspective clients. After all, a renovation that improves the access of restrooms isn't particularly flashy when compared with a brand new 90,000 seat stadium.

Renovations are inherently more complex than new construction.

Not only that, there is a lot more upfront work! As an architect or engineer you have to truly understand what is on-site before you ever begin drawing lines or running calculations.

Often, the documentation on a building is woefully out of date. In 99% of cases you might have access to an older floorplan. But in between there may have been changes (not all documented). And let's not forget mother nature: she doesn't jump into a CAD drawing or Revit model to tell you where she's left little presents!

I was reminded of this very fact while searching for documentation on buildings for an upcoming architectural tour I will be leading at the AIA Conference in D.C. this May. In my case, I'm searching through public archives. In your case the building owner may have files stashed away somewhere.

Finding existing documentation is just the first part of the challenge!

You always need to go out on site and verify.

For larger projects, this process takes days (I know from personal experience). Traditionally, you'd go on site with a pen/paper/clipboard/camera. You walk the site while taking notes and snapping photos. Once you're in the office those files are referenced by designers to plan specific interventions.

For a single kitchen home renovation, the process is pretty simple. You only have a handful of photos, and they're all of a single area.

Traditional data gathering processes do not scale efficiently.

This is the use case that got Layer started. We estimated that there were over 100,000 data points that we needed to capture. Almost half of those required photo documentation as well!

We knew that this documentation would need to be organizable, and reference able for designers to access efficiently. A commonly cited McKinsey survey estimates that 1/5 of an office worker's day is spent searching for information.

Many organizations use common off the shelf tools, and a little bit of software development magic behind the scenes to reduce this burden. You can hyperlink photos in a file sharing platform, then access them with a single click. But, this takes alot of time to setup. I'll use some ballpark numbers here to illustrate based on our example above.

Assume it takes 10 seconds to link a file into a spreadsheet:

39,000 photos x 10 seconds each = 6500 minutes or 108 man hours!

108 man hours = 2FTE for 2.25 weeks!

Let's assume that you have interns who can help with this process. Ziprecruiter suggests that the average architectural intern salary is $22.99/hr.

108 hours x $22.99 = $2483

Let's remember this is best case scenario, only for the photos, and that the interns can work at the same very fast pace processing photos into a spreadsheet at 10 seconds each. And, that's just getting the photos into a an accesible format, it still doesn't take into account the designer switching screens or pulling up a spreadsheet to review and reference them.

Let's add reference time into the equation

We'll still use large round numbers here for the estimates. For simplicity's sake, let's assume again that each time an architect needs to reference a file that it will take 10 seconds in an ideal world to swap screens, open the hyperlink, and wait for the file to load. There is another 108 hours lost. Only this time, it's at the average architect's salary of $61.90 per Ziprecruiter again.

108 x $61.90 = $6685

$6685 + $2483 = $9128

Congrats, you've spent almost 10k on just processing photos!

This is just a low end estimate of course. What if the files need to be gone through again if the client changes their mind? What about the reports you need to create from those photos where you'll copy and paste them into a word document?

I've gone down a rabbit hole on just taking photos so let's take that data and make it comparative on the owner's side of things.

Concrete costs $152-$162/ cubic yard

Let's start with the costs of a small slap to understand things further. We can assume a 90 x 40 foot slab pour. For reference, this is about 1/40th the size of the 447 x 447 ft size of the Nebraska State Capital project I referenced above.

90 feet x 40 feet = 3600 square feet

3600 square feet = 1200 / 9 = ~ 399 square yards.

Let's assume a 6" slab, or 1/6 yard which gives us:

399 / 6 = ~ 66.5 cubic yards

66.5 cubic yards x $152 = $10,108

If we use napkin math and multiply that x 40 you can understand that even if an owner can reuse just the slab, this cost may pay for itself. Not to mention the structure, windows, doors, and anything else that can be reused or sold to offset the cost.

As the Architect or Engineer your calculus will be different.

It's up to the owner what direction they want to go with a project. In your reality, they will dictate that a project will be renovated instead of torn down. This decision will usually be made on the economics of the site.

Your best business practice is to look at the pinch points of documenting existing conditions and making them accessible to the team that will work on them. Every project is different, so I'll reference 3 of them here and how streamlining this workflow has made a big difference in their productivity.

How DMA Architects surveys facade conditions 90% faster without existing models

Built in 1956, this building designed by architect Ludger Venne, features art-deco details. Standing between 7 – 9 stories, it has around 300 intricate wood and inox steel windows.

The existing documentation for the structures was outdated and the team had no pre-existing drawings or models to work off of at the start of a project. In order to solve this challenge they created a simple model with only doors & windows while their team was on-site surveying. However, the windows bore tags linking them to the nomenclature from the original documents and on-site measurements, as well as assigning certain parameters to the walls.

Using a Dynamo script, they processed the JSON file, transferring Layer markups into the Revit model at the precise 3D location. This script generated a placeholder, a petite 3D element representing the marker, containing comprehensive deficiency data, keeping all the data accessible and in Revit.

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How SmithGroup saved 2 weeks of time surveying lab equipment

SmithGroup is leading a complex, long term Laboratory project including renovations and new build of more than 400,000-sf, at a chemical facility campus. To do this, the team needed to survey the entire campus’ existing spaces. This meant documenting over 3,500 pieces of equipment, office furniture, and other items across 12 buildings.

Before, the team would spend hours organizing the data after they’ve collected it. They used Sharepoint, Excel, and InDesign. They updated their workflow so that when they were on site, they simply snapped pictures and added them to an area based on a floor plan view directly. This circumvented the time consuming file organization and cleanup that was required with their original process.

SmithGroup then developed a Dynamo script that would create generic 3D Revit Families using the dimensions listed in Layer. Each 3D Revit Family linked back to the Layer equipment through the Layer ID. Because Layer is live linked to Revit, the 20+ data points that pertain to each equipment are viewable and accessible by anyone on the project.

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Sometimes you'll be called on by a client to assess the condition of a building before a contract is issued. Apex Engineers uses a similar photo - floorplan workflow to streamline this process.

The Apex team uses Layer’s Document View to upload PDF plans and add comments directly to the drawings so they can connect descriptive data with its location on the plan.

“It becomes so much faster to be able to drop a pin onto a floor plan and associate it with that location.” - Daniel Meyer

With Layer, Apex is able to track a myriad of data types, such as whether the issue is severe or minor. Layer’s Table View allows the Apex team to sort by various fields, allowing the team to gauge the quantity or severity of the issues.

Additionally, the Apex team set up Report Templates for the company. While in the field, the forensics team writes notes each time they logged a condition on the floor plan. Rather than scratching notes on site and rewriting them in a digital document later, the Apex team automatically generates reports using the Layer drag-and-drop Report Builder.

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My takeaway is that as AEC professionals there is a huge focus on showcasing the new. But that's at the detriment of alot of our bread and butter work: renovations.