Targeted Enclosure Consulting

As building enclosure consulting services evolve and mature in markets, the scopes of service that are provided and sought, can become more standardised. While superficially well intentioned there is a risk of this leading to misalignment of client needs and expectations with outcomes when building projects are completed. New Zealand has a relatively immature construction market, in terms of size and sophistication, and availability of enclosure systems and knowledge. New Zealand’s “leaky building crisis” of the 1990’s to mid-2000’s, and the associated exposure of local government to an arguably disproportionate level of liability, has contributed to a building industry culture where the typical response is decision avoidance and excessive delegation. This culture manifests in an increasingly time inefficient, innovation stifling and dysfunctional approach to the design and construction of the building enclosure.

The principle reason for engaging an enclosure consultant should be to assist in a decision-making process, to elicit insights and guidance to achieve better project outcomes; getting to an appropriate decision faster, resolving a higher performance solution, lower costs. Standardisation of enclosure consulting scopes-of-service risks asking for answers to questions that don’t need to be asked, duplication of deliverables and processes, and clouding of responsibilities. A targeted scope for engagement of a professional enclosure consultant can be achieved by diligently undertaking a collaborative project-specific assessment of what the project and project designers actually need. Enclosure consulting services and associated outputs can be extremely malleable throughout the development of a design solution, and this can help avoid the devolution of a potentially valuable service.

This paper will be of interest to purchasers and providers of enclosure consulting services, it presents three New Zealand case studies where enclosure consulting services were provided but with substantially different scopes of services; Christchurch Library – Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects/ Architectus, 20 Customhouse Quay – Studio Pacific Architecture and the Len Lye Centre – Patterson Architects. Services provided responded dynamically to the project needs and knowledge gaps that were revealed through assessment of; incumbent skills and capabilities, risk profile, procurement options prevailing in the market. The delivered scopes included various combinations of; certified prescriptive design, detailed reference design and performance specification, design review for compliance efficiency, high level strategic guidance, targeted material/system selection studies, and performance simulations.