So Many Choices

Do you ever feel like little Annabelle after you have decided to take the walk and start a building project? (As a disclaimer, this is a photo of my daughter from about 7 years ago, she’s quite a bit taller these days!) You find yourself in the “pantry” with so many shelves, so many compartments and so many items to choose from - So Many Choices. You are not sure where to start. Some stuff you can reach, some you need to get on your “tippy-toes” to get to, and others you will need a stepstool. In Annabelle’s case, she was going for the snacks. Sometimes you can give in to the same temptation to skip the nutritious stuff and go right to the “fun” stuff. Don’t do it. It is not the heathy way to a successful project (Fun stuff comes after the nutritious stuff). 

When you are in the “pantry” of your next project, there are some first steps before you just start reaching for stuff. Let’s look at the things to put your hands on first. 

Reach for…                                                                                                                                   

• Things you value: You need to focus on a list with categories like: Scope – Quality – Budget - Schedule. When you are clear about what you value in each of these categories, your project will start well and end even better.

• An Engineer/Architect that you know, believe in & trust. Having a professional alongside you will calm the stress of the day to day decision making because this is what they do; nothing new here for them.

• A Project Delivery Method that is right for your project and fits your corporate culture. That method may be Design-Bid-Build, Construction Management or Design Build. There is not a right or wrong method BUT there is a best method for your project. The key is identifying it.

So if you find yourself in the pantry on your next project, give us a call. We can help you decide what to reach for next…

Does The Building Have Walls?

We recently finished the design of a new outdoor pavilion for a local church here in Fort Wayne. The church has been fundraising for several months and just recently decided it was time to make it happen and get the pavilion construction started. It will give them added outdoor space for lots of things such as Vacation Bible School, outdoor events and a new fellowship area. As you can envision, the pavilion is a simple open air structure with a roof and concrete slab. It will function wonderfully for the church and I am excited to see it completed and used on a regular basis during the warm summer months here in Northern Indiana.

We encountered one strange thing during the design phase of this project. Since the pavilion is an “assembly” occupancy, it requires two points of exit. This means that we were required to design the pavilion with two specific exit paths, which may seem normal until you realize that there are no walls on the pavilion! This is one of those instances that the building code is pretty black and white on how they interpret a specific space. The reasonable person would know that in the event of an emergency, you could exit the pavilion anywhere you want, but the state building code required us to specify two exit paths, both with concrete sidewalks leading to and from the pavilion. 

We here at PDMi pride ourselves on having a very good working knowledge of the building codes, whether they are logical or not. When you are ready to build your next building (even it doesn’t have walls), give us a call and we can help you navigate all aspects of the building process.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

As many of you know, Dan Gagen retired earlier this year, well deserved I might add! With that came a void left by Dan on many fronts, but most specifically is the building code analysis that we perform on nearly all of our projects. Dan had an extraordinary knowledge of building codes and a love for studying and interpreting them. The team at PDMi continues to have the ability to interpret building codes, but not to the extent to which Dan possessed that skill. We now find ourselves in a spot where we need help on some of the more in depth and intricate code studies. There are high level code consultants in the industry and we plan to team up with them to continue to provide high level building code analysis to our clients. As the famous saying goes “teamwork makes the dream work”.

The teamwork aspect of getting projects planned, designed and implemented got me thinking about sports (to be honest I probably think about sports too much, but that’s just me). I am the assistant coach on my daughter’s youth softball team. On any given day, it’s quite obvious from the beginning of any game as to whether the team is going to have a successful game or not – it all depends on how well they work together as a team. There are 9 girls on the field, each relying on one another to be sure that outs are being recorded on defense and that runs are being scored on offense. When each girl buys into the “teamwork makes the dream work” motto, great things tend to happen!

Here at PDMi, teamwork is very important to us. Whether it’s teaming up with outside consultants that provide high levels of expertise or simply the people here in our office working together on a daily basis, teamwork always leads to a successful outcome. If teamwork sounds like a good solution to you, give us a call as we’d love to deploy the entire team to help you achieve success on your next project.