Welcome to your inside access of the Duke Smart House! In this entry, I will try
to accomplish three aims: meet the players involved
in the construction, provide a glimpse of what’s been going on behind the scenes, and paint a rough sketch of what’s to come.
On April 21st 2005, the public witnessed the ground breaking ceremony for the future Duke Smart House. Now that over a year has passed and nothing has appeared on the site of land, many of you must be wondering what has happened to the Smart House and will it ever be built? I have the answer for you – YES. You see, the delay has been caused by a number of factors, which if I attempted to explain, would lose your attention. So, the good news is this: everyone is pushing for the construction of the Smart House, and I feel it will be sooner than you may think.
Firstly, it’s time everyone be made aware of who runs this operation behind the scenes. For any construction project, you have three categories. See the chart below for a visual demonstration. The owner is the one who wants to build the house, pays the bill in the end, and will ultimately use the house. In our case, it’s a bit complex who is the owner, but the main point is Duke University will be the easiest way to think of the owner. Under Duke and Pratt, there are the fiscal donors (anonymous at the moment) and the users which will be you, the student. Then the owner finds someone to design the house. We have Frank Harmon Architects and their engineers at our side creating the blueprints and devising the layout of the house. Now once the design is approved by the user, the builder is hired for actual construction. In our case, Bovis Lend Lease will be handling that role and subcontracting parts for the house. We also have the Duke Facilities Management Department (FMD) representing Duke on the project for construction, since it will be a university building.
If that sounded simple, here’s where it gets complex. Imagine sitting in a room with 15 or so powerful Project Managers, VP’s, and Engineers discussing every aspect of this new facility. Not only do things have to be agreed upon within the three categories, but money is a huge decision factor and the cause of most delay. The Duke Smart House will be a pioneer in the industry; therefore it is completely custom designed. When the project is through, there will be enough documents related to fill up a standard double dorm bedroom (thank god it’s stored digitally). I’m talking pages and pages of items that need to be discussed. Take my first meeting for example. The meeting started at 8 am in the morning and didn’t finish until noon. Meetings like this have been going on for over a month and a half approximately once or twice a week!
So, if you’re asking yourself at this point in the entry: when can I expect to see some progress? I would most likely say sometime in October (a month away). Once it begins, the construction might go a little slower than one would expect only because everything is custom and the details for acquiring materials is a system in its own. For instance, steel is a building material that takes approximately 16 weeks from request to delivery for use. The house will be equipped with many green technologies and these systems could take some time to set-up, but we will be working on it to make sure the house is built as quickly and accurately as possible.
This is only my introduction and first entry. I will continue to share my thoughts and inside view of the construction process so that you feel part of what may someday be your home.
