Novel course trains
computer-age
master builders
Robert Alvarado stands
before a large computer screen that displays a
striking-looking building situated on a lakeshore with
snow-capped mountains in the background. On the table
before him is a detailed wooden model of the same
building, split in half to show the interior. At the back
of the room. the building's blueprints are exhibited,
surrounded by large posters of the structure's unusual
features, which include sides that slant outward and a
cylindrical skylight.
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The University of
California-Berkeley architecture student is describing
the building-design project that he and three Stanford
students completed last spring as part of an experimental
civil engineering class taught at Stanford (CE 222/122).
The class, which will be offered again this winter, uses
the latest computer and telecommunications technology to
adapt the old master-builder approach to designing and
constructing modern buildings.
"Multi-site,
cross-disciplinary, project-centered and
team-oriented" is how Renate Fruchter the civil
engineering lecturer who has been the driving force
behind its creation describes the semester-long
course, a collaborative effort between Stanford's civil
and environmental engineering department and Berkeley's
architecture and civil engineering departments.
The primary purpose of the
course is to train professionals in architecture,
engineering and construction who can work together as a
team to design and build new buildings.
For centuries, a single
individual, called a master builder, was in charge of all
aspects of a building's design and construction. In the
mid-19th century, however, as construction became
increasingly technical, the master builder was gradually
replaced by three people: the architect who designs the
building, the engineer who figures out how to build it
safely and the "constructor" who oversees the
construction. This threesome is abbreviated A/E/C in the
trade, and each has worked in increasing isolation from
the others. In recent years, this sequential design and
construction process has broken down, leading to costly
redesigns, project delays and a lot of litigation.
"The construction
industry has been in a crisis for the last 10 to 15
years," said Gregory Luth, a structural engineer at
Krawinkler, Luth & Associates, who has worked in the
industry for 21 years. "There hasn't been much
progress until now."
The amount of knowledge
and expertise involved in designing and building a large
structure today is too much for any one individual to
master. But, instead of approaching the process as a
sequential one of design, engineer and build, the
Stanford course is training the architect, engineer and
constructor to work together in an interactive team.
"Does design get
watered down? It can happen," Alvarado said.
"But maybe some things should be watered down. It
can certainly save a lot of time."
Five sites
In last year's course,
Alvarado and his teammates were assigned to design an
engineering school building complete with classrooms,
laboratory, auditorium and offices. Each of five teams
had been assigned the same basic building, but each was
given a different location: on a Sacramento river, on the
Boston shoreline, on the Oregon Coast, on an island off
the Florida coast and on a mountain site near Lake Tahoe.
On the "mountain
ridge" team, Alvarado designed the building. Mark
Heller, a graduate student in structures and
geomechanics, engineered it. Sheryl Staub, a graduate
student in construction management, planned its
construction and calculated its cost. Gina Sandoval, an
undergraduate in civil engineering, did a special study
of the life-cycle costs of the special spectrally
selective glass that the architect wanted to use in the
skylight.
The team used advanced
computer-aided design (CAD) tools to design the building
and to plan its construction, and they used virtual
reality software to "walk through" the
structure to give a sense of what it would look like.
They priced construction equipment and materials through
the Internet and used advanced project management
software to work out a detailed construction schedule.
Alumni of the course added
realism by playing the role of the project owners: If the
students wanted to change the footprint of the building
or add features that would raise the cost of the project,
they had to negotiate such changes with the owners.
Industry representatives
who sat through the five class presentations were
impressed by the practical nature of the course.
"This stuff is superb," Luth said. "It
would do credit to anybody in business today, and is
better than 95 percent of the practice in the
market." Jim Stehr, an architect with Helmuth, Obata
and Kassabaum, said that "the models are so much
more realistic than those used in the old educational
experience that these are the kind of people I'd want to
hire."
Design-build
movement
The integrated approach
gradually is catching on within the industry.
Architectural student George Elvin, who acted as the
architect for the river team, did his doctoral thesis on
this movement, called design-build. Ten years ago, about
3 percent of new buildings were constructed using this
approach. Today the number is closer to 30 percent, but
architects are dragging their feet because they are
afraid of losing control, he said.
Luth and the other
professionals agree that the public would benefit from
the design-build approach. Improved quality in the built
environment, lower costs (particularly a substantial
reduction in the 20 percent of the project cost spent on
post-construction litigation) and newer and more creative
use of materials are among the potential benefits.
The course is taught by a
team of teachers. In addition to Fruchter, Stanford civil
engineering Professors Raymond Levitt, Helmut Krawinkler,
and Martin Fischer and Berkeley architecture Professor
Yehuda Kalay instruct and supervise the students.
Mentors like Luth and
Stehr also play a key role, Fruchter said. The course is
structured along the lines of a master builder's atelier.
The mentors serve the role of master builders, sharing
their practical experience and knowledge with the
students. The graduate students roughly fit the role of
journeymen, and the undergraduate students act as
apprentices.
"There has been an
iterative growth each year in what the students have
done," said Michael Martin, a professor of
architecture at the University of California-Berkeley,
who has been involved in the course since its inception.
"This year, for the first time, I get the sense that
it is not the architect, the engineer and the constructor
representing their own professions. I get the sense that
each one was making architecture."
New Project-Based
Learning Laboratory
One reason for the
progress is the new Project-Based Learning Laboratory in
Terman Hall that Fruchter established, equipped and now
directs. The lab is specifically tailored to allow
architects, engineers and contractors to interact
productively. It was made possible by funding from the
President's Fund; the Commission on Technology, Teaching
and Learning; and the National Science Foundation; and
hardware and software supplied by Sun Microsystems, Intel
Corp., Autodesk and IntelliCorp.
The floor of the
laboratory is gridded with power and network connections
so that workstations can be set up in any location. The
special, trapezoid-shaped furniture can be combined in a
number of different ways, ranging from large hexagons for
group discussions to "Y" configurations that
provide three team members with individual desk space,
plus a common area where they can talk and exchange
information. Web-based tools allow geographically distant
team members to participate via videoconferencing and by
exchanging documents, drawings and computer-aided
designs.
In addition, Fruchter has
designed some specific groupware, called the
InterdisciplinaryCommunication Medium, that makes it
easier for the students from the different disciplines to
interact. The basic interface is a shared CAD program.
When the user clicks on a specific object, such as a
curtain wall or support truss, a box pops up that
provides basic information about the part. Also, if one
of the team members changes an element in the design, the
program automatically notifies the other members.
In addition, lab
workstations are equipped with several commercial
software packages designed to encourage team interaction.
Using a web-based program called MediaWeaver, students in
the lab can peruse complete documentation of the design
and construction of the Harris Concert Hall in Aspen,
which is used as a case study in the course.
In one way the new
laboratory may have worked too well. "Despite the
phone, fax and e-mail," confessed Anne Elliot, the
Berkeley architect on the island team, "I used the
gas and drove the miles so that we could work together. I
needed extra help using the tools. The [Project-Based
Learning Lab] is great. I wish they would set one up in
Berkeley."
Next year's
improvements
Fruchter and her
colleagues plan improvements in this year's course. The
biggest change will be to open up the course to students
beyond Stanford and Berkeley. "This will give a new
dimension to our exciting learning environment and test
its scalability," she said.
Fruchter also plans to add
enhanced videoconferencing software to support remote
students, and will introduce improvements in the software
used to manage the class's shared web workspace so that
students in other parts of the country can use it more
easily and it can better capture the way that the
projects evolve.
The mentoring program is
also being strengthened by adding industry experts on
additional subjects, such as heating, ventilation and air
conditioning systems, that previously have been treated
generically. SR
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