Front Loading Quality...
...makes my job so much easier later on in a project. And delivering quality is what it is all about, right?
Buy the right site. Sites are all unique, and offer you unique advantages to meet your program. If you are building green, you should have plenty of southern exposure (and minimal western exposure) to meet your daylighting and PV requirements. If view is your priority, the view corridor and your rights to it need to be carefully understood. Cost. Entitlements. Variances? What are the trade-offs? Quantify them. Have your architect/CM/contractor walk through with you and understand what they see as opportunities/constraints. What does the site want to be?
Entitlements. Permits, and what permissions they provide, affect schedule. We never could have produced Showcase in the time we had to deliver if the permitting hadn't been precisely correct. Hat tip to Dan Phipps Architects.
Be careful what you ask for. Rightsize your requirements. Emergency power sized to cool the house and fire up the spa can get expensive. Increasing granularity on program and budget allows you to move in sync. Visions [.pdf] need to be tested, understood, and undertaken by those who will build them.
Design from the Inside Out, Build from the Outside In. One designer told me that he designs a home from the door jambs out. Builders start with setting horizontal and vertical control for a site. At some point, these two vectors intersect. Quality happens when the glide path of these vectors is understood and integrated.
No Leaks, No Squeaks, No Smells. The three most significant reasons owners are not happy with their homes is the presence of leaks, sounds that should not be there, and smells that should not be there. Design to eliminate possibilities of this happening. Choose materials in a similar manner. Build well. Size the HVAC system correctly.
Understand What you are Building. This goes for Owners as well as Contractors. I cannot recite the number of times I have been told, "That is Wrong!" after we have gone through design, reviewed and approved shop drawings, and tried to be as clear about what is being built as possible. You never catch 'em all, but boy is it a pain in the butt to rip stuff out and pay for it twice. Fabrication drawings are the way the builder confirms what is meant in schematics, so carefully review them before releasing them for fabrication.
