The different phases of the design service at Mar Azul

Every architectural work begins with an idea, a design that is brought to reality and at Mar Azul we have a team of experts who are in charge of providing this service and who will share with us today information about the phases to obtain an ideal design. We can start with what we consider to be its three main phases and how each of them is composed:

Predesign or schematic design

It refers to the general concept of owner requirements and begins with:

→ Research: to understand both the client’s needs, their objectives and expectations for the project, as well as any restrictions or other key aspects to consider; and

→ Master plan: to define the components of the project and design, land use and volumetry. In this phase we define the phases of the design for its development.

Design or design development

It deals with what is established with measures, already complying with the client’s requirements, and it is developed in this way:

→ Conceptual design: to establish the concept of the structures, defining the size and shapes of the building. Definition of floors and elevations, facades, and general appearance of the buildings. The preliminary construction materials and construction methodologies are also defined, without details;

→ Design development: to propose a further development of the project and more details. Work is being done both on the definition of materials and on the integration disciplines for other EG, structural, MEP systems, etc.; and

→ Construction documents: to develop the engineering plans, the complete drawings of the building that the contractor will use to build the project.

Proconstruction

At this stage, all the information required to start construction is already available, so we proceed to:

→ Selection of contractor(s): to carry out the bidding processes to select the general contractor or contractors, depending on the structure of the project; and

→ Start of works: to finally start the execution phase of the project with a design that meets the client’s objectives and is feasible in terms of costs.

It should be noted that the initial identification of customer requirements is not always easy because there are times when customers are not entirely clear about the idea or their needs, so it is vitally important to guide them through this process, to be able to fully identify all their requirements.

Throughout the development phase, various tools are used that adapt to each type of project, from the most basic to the most modern, such as: from a freehand sketch, AutoCAD, sketchup, to devising the future that will lead us to use tools that have the characteristics for BIM, like Revit and Edificius, among others.

Now, for the part of deliverables to clients, it can vary according to the scope of each project, always depending on the initial request. By dealing with these aspects in a summary way, we use either Design Development (DD) to validate what is wanted and/or Construction Documents (CD) to carry out the construction.

Another situation that usually arises is when the client already has his design or plans. It is there when the design service in Mar Azul offers a complement to the administration management within the project, providing support in the part of the design review, review of plans, designs, and development of plans, which provides solutions to various errors or omissions contained in the client’s plans and, furthermore, offering value engineering alternatives to avoid delays in delivery or contribute to the progress of the project.

To culminate, the development of the design and the delivery of plans are, in simple words, the recipe to bake the cake, so it is vitally important to have the correct team.