Read Bills Book! :https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F1MDRPK7

All Platforms: https://books2read.com/u/bpxj76

Discover how professional design development coordination prevents construction disasters in this essential guide to specialist team management. Bill Reid reveals why your architect must evolve from solo designer to orchestra conductor, coordinating civil engineers, structural engineers, MEP designers, and interior designers to create comprehensive plan sets. Learn the digital coordination process that catches conflicts before construction, understand why early interior designer integration protects your investment, and master the questions that expose poor coordination. Perfect for custom home construction planning, major renovations, and anyone working with architects who wants to ensure their specialist team works together seamlessly toward their vision.

Episode Summary: Bill Reid reveals the critical coordination phase of design development where your architect transforms from solo artist to orchestra conductor. This comprehensive guide explores how specialist teams work together to prevent costly construction mistakes and ensure your vision becomes reality through proper planning and collaboration.

Key Timestamps & Topics:

[00:00:00-00:04:00] From Solo Artist to Orchestra Conductor

Transition from schematic design to design development coordination

How your architect evolves into a project conductor

The expanding team of design specialists

[00:04:00-00:10:00] The Specialist Team Assembly

Civil engineers and site placement decisions

Soils engineers and foundation design

3D renderings for final location confirmation

Structural engineer handoff and timeline

[00:10:00-00:19:00] Interior Design Integration Strategy

Why early interior designer involvement matters

Digital file exchange between consultants

MEP systems coordination requirements

The architect's documentation responsibilities

[00:19:00-00:29:00] The Critical Coordination Process

How digital files overlay for conflict detection

Common problems from poor communication

Structural changes that affect your vision

Mechanical system integration challenges

[00:29:00-00:44:00] Plan Pages Evolution

Site plans and civil engineering documents

Architectural floor plans and elevations

3D renderings for builder understanding

Structural engineering specifications

MEP system documentation

[00:44:00-00:51:00] Interior Design Documentation

Finish floor plans and material specifications

Interior elevations for technical precision

Tile design and detail coordination

Why professional interior design matters

[00:51:00-00:57:00] Key Messages and Action Items

The importance of specialist coordination

Your role as project general manager

Questions to ask your architect

Preview of specifications episode

• Free Story: The Tale of Two Homeowners
• https://the-awakened-homeowner.kit.com/09608e1727
• Watch: YouTube
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheAwakenedHomeownerv
• Listen: Podcast
• https://podcast.theawakenedhomeowner.com/listen
• Read: AMAZON , All Book Stores
• https://www.amazon.com/Awakened-Homeowner-Orchestrate-Construction-Success-ebook/dp/B0F1MDRPK7
• https://books2read.com/u/bpxj76
• Visit: Homepage
• https://www.theawakenedhomeowner.com/
• Follow: Instagram: Facebook:
• https://www.instagram.com/theawakenedhomeowner/
• https://www.facebook.com/theawakenedhomeowner/
• Contact: Email: wwreid@theawakenedhomeowner.com

Mentioned in this episode:

The Awakened Homeowner Book

The Awakened Homeowner Book

In our first episode of design development, I spoke about what I call the commitment phase, and that is where you actually have [00:01:00] explored all your ideas in the very first stepping stone called schematic design. And now you are picking. You're selecting the styles and the floor plans and the orientation of your home amongst many other things as you work with your architect. So as we move into the next stage of design development, a big part of what happens—there's a lot of things that happen in design development, that's why it's multiple episodes.

And we're gonna talk about specifically specifications in the next episode. But let's back up and talk about what they're gonna be doing now. While the architect is working on finalizing and refining [00:03:00] your spaces in your home and ceiling heights and all kinds of things, they're also gonna be bringing in design consultants. I've already talked about the primary design consultants that come into play in a custom home project or even a remodel project. Frankly, if you're doing a remodel and adding onto your home, there's going to be design consultants that come into play on a project. It may not be as many as a new home construction project, but that is one of the big aspects.

So let's talk about what just happened to your project team. During schematic design, it was you, your architect, and maybe an interior designer. Think of it as a small jazz trio, playing improvisational music. But design development—suddenly you need a full orchestra. And with your architect conducting multiple sections of specialists, all playing from the same sheet music to create your magnificent new home. Your architect is incredibly talented, we hope, at [00:05:00] interpreting all of your inspirations and ideas and translating that into design work and rendering so that you can get a sense of what your new home's gonna look like.

And again, you can go back and listen to a little bit more about what a soils engineer does. So there are some early consultants that have been brought in even prior to this stage of design, and it's usually your land surveyor who draws up and documents your boundaries and the slope of your lot. And it's your soils engineer who's taken soil samples from the anticipated location of the structures and they are brought back in at this time where now that you know exactly the style, the shape, the configuration of the home, and maybe even the outbuilding structures. And the architect will take all of that data, especially from the survey and the civil engineer, and start siting the home, placing the home on the lot. And we'll be interfacing with those consultants to make sure that [00:07:00] where the architect would like to put the home relative to your aspirations for the view or keeping your view out of the neighbor's lot, whatever it may be. It could be a very simple square lot and there's really no options, right? It could be a square flat lot. There's not a lot to talk about, but it could be a two-acre parcel with slopes and rock outcroppings and all different types of things.

So survey, soils engineers, civil engineers—I think I called them the lords of the dirt. They revisit all that and make a final determination and present that to you. Now during the design development stage of this episode, this empowers an architect to provide you renderings, three-dimensional renderings of your home, sitting on the lot at the proper height, at the proper location, showing proposed driveways and walkways, pathways, retaining walls. Sometimes [00:09:00] where the civil engineers participated in those designs. And this is what you are looking for—you're looking to really just lock it in and say, "Yes, I really want this."

Now, I've had projects in the past where using 3D renderings we're able to actually walk through the home and walk out onto the deck or the patio and look at the view of the potential location of the home. And I've had projects where we've actually rotated the home 10 degrees, 15 degrees, or we've raised it up six inches or a foot or back or forward. So this is the time to make that final determination. And why is that important? Because what the architect's working towards is he's working towards submitting these plans to the structural engineer for their final analysis.

While the architect is preparing a set of plans for the structural engineer, there's gonna be a point where there's a handoff to the [00:11:00] structural engineer, and then they take the project for multiple weeks. It could be four to six, eight weeks, depending on the size of the project and do all of their work. In the past episode, you may recall structural engineering, where I talk about how they really are designing the skeleton of your home. They are coming up with all of the design of the framework from the foundation, the concrete foundation to the floor system, to the walls, the ceilings, the roof—everything. And they're coming up with an instruction manual, if you will, for your contractor to be able to build off of, to be able to order all their lumber off of, to be able to order all of their structural hardware.

So while that's occurring, there's a process that the architect will be going through and that will be working from the outside in and starting to specify all of the materials that go on the project, and we'll talk about that in the next episode. But one thing I don't wanna forget is an interior design aspect of a project can be really important, and before you actually submit the plans to the engineer, it's always good to have an interior designer present [00:13:00] during the schematic design and even early in the design development. And that's because there's a coordination effort there between interpreting your lifestyle and your requirements from an interior aspect, where the architect's often thinking about a little bit bigger picture, more globally, and interior designers are gonna be thinking exactly how big the sink is and where the window might need to get moved. And I've talked a lot about this in past episodes, so I don't want to beat that one to death. But before you send the plans to the structural engineer to set things in stone, per se, it's always good to have an interior designer.

So the idea is to export and import the plans from the architect to the engineer. And this is about a very [00:15:00] productive experience so that they can then immediately start analyzing the structure. You don't really necessarily want a structural engineer completely regenerating the drawings in their own software if you can avoid it. But that can happen too. So again, they're using that software to design the structure, the bones, the connections, the methods, and the assembly instructions for your architect.

Now, before I mentioned during the design development stage, or even in the early in the schematic design stage, the free-flowing, moving walls and roofs all around, you may have declared certain options or phases that you may want to [00:17:00] consider for a project, whether it's for cost or it could even be for if you're planning to live in your home during a remodel. There's a lot of reasons why projects get phased out. A lot of times it's because of cost and we haven't necessarily made those final decisions yet, even in the design development stage, but we've declared them and identified them so that when it comes time to do some cost analysis, you're gonna be able to do that and then make final decisions at the end of design development.

All right, so visualize yourself working with your architect. Now you've got the structural engineer involved. Now you're pivoting while that's happening and you're working with your interior designer and you're starting to specify materials, furniture, layout, all kinds of things that the interior designer helps you with. Meanwhile, the architect's on the outside of the home working on entry doors and siding and trim and windows and roofing material and the gutter style. There's all kinds of things that the architect has to do and a lot of this goes on behind the scenes, and that's where [00:19:00] sometimes homeowners don't realize how much time really goes into a custom home project from an architect's standpoint.

So there's gonna be things about ductwork and plumbing drops and chases and supply returns and all of these things that have to be incorporated into the home, and it's the architect's responsibility. This goes to the orchestration aspect of it to make sure that these things are thought through ahead of time to eliminate a lot of problems during construction. So this is a key point here. You've got interior designer making sure that things are working together on locations of doors and windows, but also the electrical and lighting to achieve your goals. Sometimes interior designers will do the [00:21:00] electrical lighting. Sometimes they work with the lighting designer or with the architect because you have certain pieces of art that you want highlighted that nobody's thought about except you and your interior designer. So you can see there's a lot of moving parts now. This is one of the best ways to prevent a lot of the problems that you hear about in construction. It's proper planning and proper design.

It's very possible that an engineer reduced the size of a window or didn't allow a certain aspect of a project that the architect wanted. It's possible that all of a sudden posts appeared in the middle of the kitchen, where the island's gonna go. There's all kinds of things that an engineer, a structural engineer can do to a project that if not actually investigated, can show up way too late during construction, when you walk in one day and see the window's no longer six feet. It's four feet over the kitchen sink and nobody [00:23:00] spotted that when the structural engineer resubmitted to the architect. So this is a big one, right? This is a really big one. And believe it or not, this happens more often than not, and that can be a function of poor communication between the architect and the structural engineer.

So you can ask questions like, "Were there any changes that the structural engineer proposed or recommended or required that we had to change on the architectural plans that I would care about? Are there any posts or walls moved or windows eliminated or shrunk down?" These are the kind of things that you can ask to prevent the problems in the future because ultimately you're the one who has to deal with all the problems and may have to live with things that you're not really that satisfied with.

This is a really big problem because who makes compromises? If the mechanical contractor cannot tell where all the ductwork goes, they're making decisions on the fly to design the system. That could mean minimizing or compromising your comfort level in the home. That could mean seeing strange chases and drop-down ceilings and soffits that you didn't think you needed, that now you do need, so that means your ceiling height in your basement's now seven feet instead of nine feet or whatever. So if these aren't [00:26:00] being designed properly, the equipment may not be sized properly. Ducting may not be sized properly. You are making compromises on comfort and style and aesthetics. This happens a lot in this business, and I don't understand why. It needs to be coordinated and overseen by your architect and for you to know now that's a possibility. That's the goal here, right?

Do you want this closet or that closet taken up? Do you want to reduce the size of your walk-in pantry so we can get the cold air return up and out? You are involved in the process or your architect's involved in the process, not making these concessions in the middle of construction where possibly materials have been ordered that could get [00:28:00] affected by reducing the size of a certain space for these things to work out. It's really important that you address mechanical. Same thing applies to electrical and plumbing design. Where's the big drain pipe coming down? "It's gonna come down this wall over here that's behind my headboard in my new bedroom. Do I really wanna listen to all that? Let's put it over here. That's the dining room. I don't want to hear drain water coming down while I'm entertaining with a dinner party." You're getting where I'm going here. It's who's thinking about this and who's making it a priority?

You are now being presented hopefully 3D renderings of some of the materials that you think you like for the outside of your home and maybe even the inside of your home. Electrical lighting design is being accomplished so that you can discuss where all of your fixtures are going to go. We're all working towards the plan pages that you need to do some analysis, and that's what we're gonna talk about next.

So in the early stage of schematic design, we did some early budgeting. Way back in the discovery phase, if you recall it. If you haven't, go back and listen to that. We did some analysis and some thoughts about how much we want to invest in the project. Forget about what do I want—how much do I have? How much do I want to spend? That's [00:31:00] the original goal. At the end of schematic design, we did a little bit of more detailed analysis, but still at a higher level by square footage. Because now we have data points such as the square footage, the specifications of some of the materials, the options that we want to consider.

Now we're working towards the next level, which I call budget checkpoint two, which will be coming a little bit later. And we'll be talking about that because this is how we're going to really get to the nut of it. This is the missing link that a lot of homeowners and architects and designers blow through and just keep on chugging away only to actually sabotage your own project. At the end of design development, you're sitting here feeling great and then you price the project out.

So what you're gonna need is you're gonna need a certain level of plan pages, design work in order to be able to intelligently converse with your architect and potential builders for your project. Because our goal is to figure out how much we think this thing's gonna cost before we go real [00:33:00] deep into the next step. So a site plan is a common name of a plan page on a project. So what I'm talking about when I say plan pages, I'm talking about—people used to call 'em blueprints. These are pages that are often 24 inch wide by 36 inch long. This is that roll of plans that you see on projects that you are now creating for yourself. A site plan. And sometimes in the world of architectural design it's an acronym of S-01 or SP. There's different acronyms they use, and it's usually at the beginning part of the compiled plan pages, and it's often in a custom home project, you could have 20 to 40, 50 pages of plans or sheets within a plan set for a project.

These are the areas and details that you need to be able to get some kind of budgetary number. You also use the site plan to make sure that you've complied with the setbacks from the property lines and all the other aspects of conforming to the planning department that we have to—I've spoken about in the past—setbacks, the size of the home, the floor area ratio, the amount of square footage relative to the lot, the height of the structures. These plans start to give somebody who's gonna build this thing the idea.

So the next one that architect generates is called elevations. Elevations are a separate sheet or sheets of a plan set that show two-dimensional drawings of your home from the outside, and that is the front of the home, the side of the home, the back of the home. This helps anybody who's gonna be building the project understand the scale, the mass, the locations of windows and doors, the sizes of trims, everything that they need to know to be able to understand what this home looks like when they go to build it. And this is also where an architect can specify materials. So you may see indicators on elevations of what materials they want to use for the siding, for the masonry, for the exterior trim, for the roofing material. And this helps the builder understand. Remember, we're [00:38:00] still at—we're not at that early stage. Now we're in the core part of design, but we're not finished yet. But the goal here is for you to be able to see what's going on and for a potential builder to see what's going on.

Now, of course, as I mentioned before, the structural aspect is probably the most important. This is gonna be one of the biggest line items in a project for you when it comes to cost, and also drives all kinds of design elements, like I've mentioned before. So in the structural pages, now at this stage of the game, at the very least, you should have preliminary structural plans, and those are often identified as what we call the S pages. So S-01, 02, 03, 04, 05. And they usually work from the ground up. So usually start with a foundation plan, and this is where you start to see the details, the structural components that go inside your concrete, and also the type of concrete, the specifications for the concrete, the [00:40:00] rebar size, the metal that goes inside your concrete, the size of the foundation, meaning the height of the foundation, the width of the footings, all of that aspect is important for a builder to understand when they go to price out the project.

And then of course, the framing plan. So the framing plan is your walls, your floor, your walls, your ceilings, your roofs, your beams, every aspect of the skeleton of the home. The structural engineer will be specifying all the [00:42:00] sizes of the lumber, the thicknesses, the heights, the specifications for the subfloor and the wall framing, whether it's two-by-six wall, two-by-four wall, the plywood sheathing on the outside, all the beams that make the interconnections, the roof framing structure, the member sizes, the slope, the pitch all this type of stuff. The engineer is specifying the materials to achieve the architect's drawings down to every single nail specification, screw, brackets, hardware that needs to go into the project. All of that specified on a structural set of plans. Sometimes structural engineering plans cost the same or sometimes even more than the architectural drawings. It's really crazy. So it's really important that you have that in this design development stage. Now, a lot of times it's towards the end of the [00:43:00] design development stage, and that's what we're working our way towards. But you're gonna need this if you want somebody to analyze the structure and the cost for you.

And what I just spoke about are the MEP pages, and sometimes you'll see 'em titled that—M1, E1, P1. This is the thing that you need to know or need to have in order to accomplish the goals.

So an interior designer—a big part of what they do is they create what I call a finish floor plan. Now, this may not be as common in the world of design, but I've really found it beneficial. And that is the floor plan pages. So visualize yourself looking over your home in a 2D view. And the interior designer documents all of the flooring materials that go in each room. They document all the transitions from different floors to different rooms. And they document things like the location of light fixtures that are relative to their kitchen and bath design. And they specify all of the materials that go by looking from above down. So it could be decorative beams, it could be [00:46:00] built-in cabinetry that goes in certain areas. Those are just some examples of what can be communicated to a flooring contractor, a builder, right? So that is the idea here when somebody says, "Oh, I want flooring here. Where is it? How much is it? How much is there of it? Where does it stop and start?" Those kind of things can really help people visualize and also price out a project.

And by the way, this is where having an interior designer involved as early as possible can influence the architectural design and then ultimately the structural design. So if you see where I'm going here, bringing them in as early as possible helps convey, or I should say, helps protect you when it comes to the aesthetics and also the cost. So interior elevations of fireplaces, kitchens, islands, vanities, built-ins, special recess ceiling details, how they interface with the fireplace, fireplace mantles, the mantle design, and then they will specify all of those materials that they've drawn. A big one is tile patterns, right? So interior elevations [00:49:00] in a shower in a primary brand new primary bathroom. The tile detail—it's an unbelievable amount of time and effort and importance that goes into the tile design.

Okay. So this is a really big one, and how that tile backsplash interfaces with the countertop and the countertop edge detail. The more of this information that you have to hand to a builder, to hand to a tile setter, to hand to a cabinet maker, the more they're gonna respect you and your project, the more accurate your pricing is going to be. I can't emphasize this enough that having an interior designer on a project can really save your butt, basically. Now there's a lot of homeowners that will say, "I'll do all that myself, and I'll wait till we have the permits and we're getting started. Then I'll start picking out all the colors." But I don't think that's a really good idea. So that's what we're talking about today is we're in the middle of the design development stage. We've talked about the early [00:51:00] stage of design development, committing to certain plans and options and ideas. We've now talked about the coordination of all the people that come into play on a project and how important certain elements of that are.

So you as a homeowner are wanting to understand this. I want you to understand this now so that you can keep your eye on the ball. You're not supposed to know everything and I know we're getting into some more technical stuff here, but I want you to know that these are the things that are gonna be happening. Interior design integration is absolutely imperative. That's one of today's key messages that can really help link the original inspirations that you had with the final outcome so that you can be the one plastering everything on the internet of your project and how great your project is.

So you're not just a homeowner anymore. Now you're leading a team of specialists, or I should say you're like the general manager overseeing the coaching staff, right? You're watching what they're doing. You don't necessarily know how to coach somebody how to hit a baseball [00:54:00] because you're the GM or you're the president of the team, but you can see what's happening. You can understand the basics and really understand the results, right? Is he hitting the ball? Is he not hitting the ball? Do I have my ductwork poking out of the ceiling in weird spots? So you don't have to understand every technical detail, but you do need to ensure they're all working together toward your vision. Ask questions, request updates, and stay engaged in the coordinating process. Don't just wash your hands of it. A lot of clients do that. A lot of homeowners do that. They just expect everything to be taken care of, and that's in a perfect world, yes, that's what you should be able to do, but don't count on it. Get a feeling early on and then start asking some questions. You can always back off if you feel like, "Hey, this person's got it right. I feel like they've got my back. They're my advocates."

You hear a lot about change orders. If things weren't thought out early enough, specified enough, designed enough, ultimately, you're going to get change orders on a project. You're gonna walk into your home during construction and be surprised about what you're seeing and not necessarily in a good way. This is the things that I'm talking about today. So remember, great projects aren't built by individual experts working in isolation. They're created by teams of specialists working in coordination toward a shared vision. You are building that team now. You're gonna depend on your architect or your residential designer to be the orchestrator, but you are still part of that orchestra. [00:57:00] Maybe you're at the head of the orchestra, I don't know, and you're building that team and trust the process, stay engaged and know that you got this. And I'm hoping the information today makes you feel that way, that you've got at least a lot better understanding of what's going on.

So that is my mission today, is to get your head in the game when it comes to what is happening behind the scenes with the specialist, with the coordination, what's really important, what matters to you. And then we're gonna get into the real nitty-gritty details the next episode. So I'm Bill Reid. I'm your home building coach from The Awakened Homeowner, and I will see you on the next episode.