Top Ten Challenges--No. 3. Don't Compromise on Quality
Built quality is the touchstone of a contractor's operation...at least as far as the Owner is concerned. And you get what you inspect, not what you expect, insight provided to me by one of my chief petty officers when I was a wet-behind-the-ears ensign in the US Navy Seabees.
The best way to get a fix on quality is by seeing mockups and samples to provide a real example of what is buildable, and hence approvable.
The second best way is to find where it was done elsewhere and find out who did it. Look at what they did, and see how close it is to where you want to end up. Architect's monographs can be a great source of solutions. When I'm stuck, sometimes I wander over to Bill Stout's bookstore and look for solutions.
Specs help get you in the general ballpark, but seeing is believing. In our world of design once, build once, operate once, I use mockups and samples extensively to get agreement on what it is that we want--how materials meet, finish conditions, trim options. I usually have a mockups budget to help get us iterating through the finish options to get us where the building needs to be.
Tags: Quality, Mockups, Finishes, Owner Challenges
