Dale Sinclair - Design Management

This Design Management Guide is a timely publication, coming as it does at a point when the time pressures on the design process are so intense. In the pre-construction period, the design process is increasingly compacted into a shorter period as the wish to get on to site earlier with a high degree of cost certainty increases. There is then the conflicting requirement to manage design input that is prepared over an increasingly longer portion of the overall construction process in particular, that undertaken by contactors and their specialist subcontractors generally simultaneously with the construction period. In such a pressured environment it is welcome to see a renewed focus on the role of the lead designer and the skills and tools needed in managing the production, coordination and integration of the design into the overall project.

In this context the comprehensive rethinking undertaken by the authors of the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 has brought a breadth and depth of clarity. Its focus on the flexibility needed to address different procurement routes, the emphasis on the collaborative nature of design and the integrated consideration of sustainability and digital design environments is resulting in a positive adoption across the industry. This guide, one of a suite supporting the RIBA Plan of Work 2013, now provides a valuable stage-by-stage route map to those undertaking the lead designer role.

In practice, of course, the design process rarely proceeds according to the strictly linear and ideal manner sometimes suggested by management guides; the reality is more often confused, exciting and dynamic, charged by conflicting commercial interests and coloured by the personalities involved.

Within this arena, the lead designer, armed with the guidance and the tools set out in this guide, and bolstered by their own strength of will and force of personality, will be better able to bring clarity of direction to and communication between the design team for the benefit of the project.

Whether for some, as the author says, design begins with a blank computer screen or for others with an empty stretch of sketch roll and a pen, adequate time needs to be allowed at the earliest stages for the right design to develop if a robust strategy and clear direction are to be established for the project.

A strong lead designer has a key part to play in creating that time for design and, with the understanding that management is not an end in itself, but that designers are usually best placed to manage design, this renewed focus on the role can only be positive for the design professions.

Jonathan Hall
Director and Co-founder, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris