Tag: Architecture

a/e ProNet’s Annual Fall Meeting (Oct 3 – 5, 2012)

By Lynda

This week, 46 a/e ProNet members from 27 member agencies are expected to attend our annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois. Over the course of two and half days, twelve top-tier Professional Liability insurance companies will present to our membership. Each company will take this opportunity to announce policy form changes, new endorsements, and pricing expectations for the coming year; as well, they will alert us to industry trends surrounding claims and risk management.

Because a/e ProNet brokers are independent, that-is, not tied to any single insurance company, the insurance companies sending representatives to this event know that they are in competition for our business. It is in their best interest to make their programs as comprehensive and beneficial  to our clients as possible. The companies attending this event include: RLI, Travelers, Victor O. Schinnerer, Liberty, Beazley, Catlin, HCC, Hanover, Navigators, Insight, All Risks, and AXIS.

Our Thursday night reception for members and insurance company representatives will be held at a new venue this year: The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Rotunda at the Chicago Cultural Center.

Our clients are architects and engineers, and we appreciate what they do today, as well as what they have created in the past. We chose the Chicago Cultural Center, opened in 1897, because it is “one of the city’s most popular attractions and is considered one of the most comprehensive arts showcases in the United States.” In other words, it’s beautiful! A Chicago landmark, located in the Loop, across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park, the GAR Memorial consists of a large hall and rotunda in the north wing of the building. The hall is “faced with deep green Vermont marble, broken by a series of arches for windows and mahogany doors. The rotunda features 30-foot walls of Knoxville pink marble, mosaic floor, and a fine, stained-glass dome in Renaissance pattern by the firm of Healy and Millet.”

If you have questions about this meeting, or a question about a/e ProNet, don’t hesitate to contact us. You can also find your local a/e ProNet broker through our website.

World-Architects & URBANSCREEN

By Lynda

I love when the latest update from World-Architects arrives in my email. Covering projects and trends from around the globe, this e-magazine makes architecture available and interesting to the public. There’s always something cool to see. This week, it’s a game of shadows and light: the colorful disappearing act of Sydney’s Opera House, brought to the masses by URBANSCREEN.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/45835867]

Is your mind sufficiently blown? Thought so.

URBANSCREEN is based in Bremen, Germany. Established in 2005, their team currently consists of eight contributors, artists brought together from different disciplines representing architecture, music, stage design and media-art.

As URBANSCREEN notes in the World-Architects interview, “The majority of our works are homages to the concept of the architect, emphasizing a building’s features and extending the perception of its construction.”

Art feeding art feeding art. Check out the URBANSCREEN blog for more incredible videos like this one, and read the World-Architects article for an in-depth look at the artistic process.

Our Scholarship for Architecture Students — Application Deadline: November 19

By Lynda

Attention, Architecture students! We know how hard you’re working toward your dream career, and we also know the cost of your education is high. Have you applied for the David W. Lakamp AIA Scholarship?

The David W. Lakamp AIA Scholarship was established in 1990 by a/e ProNet, a group of insurance professionals providing risk management services to architects and engineers. It was renamed in 1999 for David W. Lakamp, one of our founding members, and a widely-trusted advisor to the design industry. Mr. Lakamp left behind a legacy of professionalism and integrity that set new standards in the field of insurance services.

Today, the scholarship provides two $2,500 awards each year, and these are bestowed upon the two students who best demonstrate strong interest in practice management.

The scholarship is open to fourth-year undergraduates and graduate students of architecture enrolled in an NAAB-accredited professional degree program. Submissions are reviewed by a jury panel consisting of members of the AIA Practice Management Knowledge Community (PMKC) and the a/e ProNet organization. Candidates must submit a copy of their transcripts, two letters of recommendation, and an essay on how they would resolve a project management dilemma.

The current application deadline is November 19, 2012.

Visit the education section of the AIA website for more information, as well as to download a PDF of the 2012 a/e ProNet David W. Lakamp AIA Scholarship application.

In 2011, two recipients were awarded the a/e ProNet David W. Lakamp Scholarship. To read their case study topic responses, please click here.

Questions? Please send inquiries to: scholarships@aia.org

John Lum Architecture featured on 2012 SF AIA Tour

By Lynda

Lovers of architecture (and the city by the bay) will have a special treat this weekend during the 2012 SF AIA Tour. This is the 10th annual San Francisco Living: Home Tours weekend, offered by the AIA “to promote a wide variety of architectural styles, neighborhoods, and residences—all from the architect’s point of view.” Tour participants will visit “some of the city’s latest residential projects from the inside out, meet design teams, explore housing trends, and discover design solutions that inspire unique San Francisco living.”

And we’re excited to announce that a/e ProNet client John Lum Architecture has a house featured on the tour for the second year in a row!

The St. Germain Residence, originally constructed in 1959, is a standout on Saturday’s list. John Lum Architecture kept the “original spirit of the Bay Area modernist aesthetic, while updating and reworking the interior to create an elegant but warm space.”

San Francisco-based John Lum Architecture, founded in 1994, has completed over 500 projects. Recent projects include a vegan shoe store in Berkeley. We love how creative our clients are!

Visit the AIA website for complete tour info and ticket information.

Photo by Sharon Risedorph Photography.

Case Study: No Common Law Indemnification Duty Owed by General Contractor

By Lynda

No Common Law Indemnification Duty Owed by General Contractor to Project Owner for Subcontractor Employee Injuries Where GC Did Not Control and Supervise the Subcontractor’s Work

In a case whose principles apply to design professionals as well as general contractors, a GC was performing a build-out for a store tenant (not the project owner) and retained the services of a subcontractor for certain work. An employee of the subcontractor was injured by falling from a ladder, and the project owner sued the contractor for common law indemnification and contractual indemnification for damages for which the Owner had been found vicariously liable under the state’s statutory law.

Although the general contractor had not itself been found to be directly liable or vicariously liable for the subcontractor employee injuries, the property owners argued they were entitled to common law indemnification. They asserted the general contractor contractually assumed sole responsibility and control of the entire project, and had the contractual authority to (1) direct, supervise and control the means and methods of plaintiff’s work, and (2) institute safety precautions to protect the workers.

The Owner asked the Court to adopt a general rule that a party may be liable for common-law indemnification upon a showing that the party (i.e., the proposed indemnitor) either was actually negligent or had the authority to direct, control or supervise the injury-producing work, even if it did not exercise that authority. What the Owner asked to court to do was equate a party that merely has authority to direct, control or supervise the work with a party who is actively at fault in bringing about the injury suffered by the plaintiff.

The appellate court held that in the absence of proof of any negligence or actual supervision of a general contractor, the mere authority the general contractor has to supervise the work and implement safety procedures is not a sufficient basis to require common law indemnification of the project owner. McCarthy v. Turner Construction, Inc., 953 N.E. 2d 794, (New York, 2011).

Although the GC interacted with the subcontractor and the sub-subcontractor firm whose employee was injured, the GC had no supervisory authority over the sub-subcontractor’s work and it provided no tools or ladders to subcontractors that worked at the site.

No Contractual Indemnification

Citing case law that stands for the proposition that through a contractual indemnification clause, an owner who is only vicariously liable by statute may seek full indemnification from the party that is wholly responsible for the accident, the court found in this case that there was no direct contractual relationship between the project owner and the general contractor. The contract was in fact between the contractor and a store tenant of the project owner. In addition, the owner had no third party beneficiary rights under the contract between the contractor and the store tenant. For these reasons, the contractual indemnification claim was dismissed on summary judgment by the trial court, and that dismissal was affirmed on appeal.

This has been an excerpt of the June 2012 edition of ProNetwork News. Download the full PDF version of this newsletter to read more about Common Law Indemnification and the implications for design professionals.

About the Author: J. Kent Holland is a construction lawyer with the risk management consulting firm Construction Risk Counsel, PLLC, in Tysons Corner – Vienna, Virginia. The firm provides consulting services including: Contract Risk Management and Insurability Review; Change Order and Claim Preparation and Analysis; Insurance Risk Management; Insurance policy and endorsement review and drafting; and Risk Management Training. Mr. Holland is admitted to practice law in Virginia and Maryland and concentrates on construction and environmental law, insurance and risk management. For more information, call 703-623-1932 or e-mail Kent@ConstructionRisk.com. This article is adapted from one originally published in ConstructionRisk.com Report, Vol. 14, No. 5 (May 2012). and is used here with permission.

Blog Love: Schinnerer’s RM Blog

By Lynda

Time to return some Blog Love!

We are big fans of Victor O. Schinnerer’s Risk Management Blog. Several times a month, this long-standing professional liability insurance provider posts brief, timely, helpful articles that are relevant to the design industry. The emphasis is on risk management for design firms, and posts often include links back to pertinent studies and claims scenarios.

A few recent posts:

Building Reuse Provides Environmental Value — 27 August

“Earlier this year the National Trust for Historic Preservation released a report by its Preservation Green Lab that provides the most comprehensive analysis yet of the potential environmental benefits of retrofitting the existing building stock. The study, The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse is available from the organization’s PreservationNation.org/Sustainability website.

“The report concludes that when comparing buildings of equivalent size and function, building reuse almost always offers environmental savings over demotion and new construction. The report states that it can take between 10 and 80 years for a new energy-efficient building to overcome, through efficient operations, the climate change impacts created by its constriction. For the majority of building types in different climates, the study points to 20 to 30 years of use to offset the initial carbon impacts from construction. The study recognizes that the environmental benefits of reuse are maximized when a minimum of new materials are used; renovation projects that require many new materials can reduce or even negate the benefits of reuse.” Continue reading… Continue reading “Blog Love: Schinnerer’s RM Blog”

Integrated Project Delivery: Changing the Insurance Landscape

By Lynda

With more project owners demanding the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM), project delivery is necessarily carried out through greater contributions of design input by the general contractor and the major trade subcontractors. The design professionals are no longer the sole authors of the project design. This collaborative project delivery method has been called integrated project delivery (IPD). The contribution of design input from each of the various project players using IPD is a significant break from the traditional division of responsibility recognized in the standard design-bid-build project delivery method. Players who never participated in the project design now face potential risk of professional liability. Additionally, the new, cutting-edge technologies being used for BIM expand the types of risks born by the design professional if there are errors and omissions within the computer modeling system or the improper management of the computerized data.

What is BIM?

BIM involves computerized design software tools that help create a model that reflects all of the building components’ geometric and functional qualities. The general contractor and trade subcontractors provide product-specific information for building components and that data is inputted into the model, including performance specifications, connection details and cost data. However, the model is more than a mere representation of the design in a three-dimensional computer graphic. Embedded within the design programs are rules that define each of the components’ relation to the other components. Continue reading “Integrated Project Delivery: Changing the Insurance Landscape”

Construction Observation: Important Risk Management Service

By Lynda

Construction observation is a powerful weapon for architects and engineers (A/E) in their risk management arsenal. Certain clients understand the benefits when A/E firms offer construction phase services. However, driven by slow economic conditions, many clients are asking firms to do more, with less, including reducing or eliminating construction phase services. Other clients decide they will administer the construction contract themselves or decide to use a third party instead of the A/E firm.

Clients have also held the A/E to a higher standard of care when providing construction observation services. How do these actions affect A/E firms? It significantly increases the A/E’s risk and liability exposures.

Construction Phase Risks

Details in design documents cannot anticipate every contingency that may occur during the construction phase. If the A/E firm of record is not retained to provide clarification of the plans and specifications the risk of misinterpretation of the contract documents increases.  Bad decisions can lead to project confusion, delays, increased costs, disputes and claims between the owner and the A/E.

The exposure of the A/E is increased due to certain owners and contractors asserting that the designer has a similar responsibility of the contractor for discovering all defects on the project. Based on this distortion and unrealistic expectation of construction observation services, owners and contractors have stated the A/E should be a guarantor of the contractor’s work. These expectations dramatically increase the A/E’s standard of care and risks associated with construction phase services. Court decisions have ruled in Owners’ favor holding that the A/E has a duty to guard the owner against all non-conforming work on the project, although much of that work was completed when the firm was not present on-site. Members of the plaintiff’s bar continue efforts to hold the A/E accountable for this higher standard of care for construction phase services. Continue reading “Construction Observation: Important Risk Management Service”

London’s Olympic Architecture: Natural Ventilation Systems, Gag Orders, and Extreme Dancing

By Lynda

One week from today, a cast of 15,000 will partake in the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics in London. Events will be held in a wide variety of structures, both permanent and newly constructed. Depending on which media outlet you consult, some Londoners are proud of the variety of eclectic stadiums which have popped up across the city, while others are displeased with the way these venues have changed the look and feel of their city.

If nothing else, the architectural boom following the winning bid for any Olympics is worth admiring. Firms from all over the globe compete for their designs to be featured in the world’s most-watched sporting event. Interestingly, along with being the first “digital Olympics,” these games are also the most-notoriously privacy-restricted in history: from strict contracts regarding media coverage to bans on private citizens posting photos of the events on social media sites to gag-orders on the architects and engineers who designed and built the stadiums.

The following are a few fun articles about the London Olympic buildings and their creators, inspirations, receptions, and detractors:

Olympics 2012: Innovations going for the gold (Washington Post)

“Innovation goes beyond the athletes to include the venue as well. London 2012’s emphasis on showcasing sustainable green venues for its sporting events may challenge us to re-think public architecture in new ways, just as Beijing’s Bird Nest challenged us to re-think the design of buildings. Who needs air conditioning when you have buildings that use a 100 percent natural ventilation system? (Alright, if you’ve spent any time in the Washington, D.C. area this summer, you might be skeptical about any building that’s air-conditioning free.). Or how about buildings made from recycled construction debris? The London 2012 vision is to re-claim former industrial wasteland in the city by transforming it into a green park area.” Continue reading “London’s Olympic Architecture: Natural Ventilation Systems, Gag Orders, and Extreme Dancing”