The architecture profession is facing a new age of project delivery where multiple stakeholders in the successful completion of a construction project have significant independent design responsibilities and construction cost and time are reduced through shared digital information. Architects can take the lead in this restructuring. That leadership could result in a stronger focus on the value of design and management skills. And it could a more profitable practice with better control over business and professional risks.

Firms are Transitioning to Building Information Modeling
Cost-efficient, deadline-specific projects that meet regulatory requirements and expected quality levels have always been an aspiration of the design and construction industries. Now, because of building information modeling (BIM) and other technological and communication advances, these goals may be more easily attained through an integrated practice methodology led by architects. Integrated practice, in which the bright line between design and construction is blurred, is facilitated through the use of BIM technology. Its use could mean fundamental changes for how professionals practice, opening up new opportunities for service and reducing exposure to communication and documentation problems that now lead to so many professional liability claims.

As the construction industry consolidates around the use of BIM, architects may lead as project information integrators. Licensed professionals may be in the best position to control the overall process and create the database of design/procurement/construction information provided to or managed on behalf of the client. The option for a more specialized or focused role will likely also remain.

BIM and the Future of Architecture as a Profession
Increasingly as design is seen as an activity rather than the protected output of a profession, commerce is forcing changes in how architects function. And BIM is certain to accelerate this trend. It has been quoted at AIA conventions that “design is the currency of the 21st century” but reality probably will show that efficiency is truly the legal tender of the coming decades. Concerns over initial costs and the money value of time, operating expenses, and the regulatory or social pressures on sustainability all will impact how the built environment is created, managed, and maintained. BIM will be the tool to enable the integration of not only the information about the building but also the creative, constructive, and controlling processes. This undoubtedly will challenge all aspects of the current positions of the parties in design and construction.

Although individuals educated in design and trained in the technology of BIM will be in high demand, the blurring of the bright line that has separated design and construction may mean that the role of those trained, and perhaps licensed, as architects will change significantly. Small design providers may still survive as architecture firms. But archaic professional licensure statutes will change in interpretation or will disappear in a new commercial environment that eventually leads to changes in the legal system. And the role of those who are designated as architects may be within management consulting firms, design-build entities, vendors of buildings as “products,” or other larger financial operations that better meet the needs of the 21st century. The AIA was started to separate the “profession” of architecture from the “package builders” of the 1800s. With BIM, the return of the “package builders” may be the new paradigm.

Professional or Design Liability Coverage Is Essential
As collaborative design efforts develop and nonlicensed members of a refabricated team increasing provide design elements, protection for all stakeholders is essential. The legal system requires that parties rectify harm caused by their negligence, and any party providing negligent design input should be liable if that negligence causes harm to end users or other project stakeholders.

Professional liability insurance coverage is fairly well defined through policy language and court decisions. Although professional liability coverage is not meant to cover technology-based risks such as lost data, virus corruption, or general software glitches other than those incidental to the covered professional services, it does cover broadly defined design services, regardless of the means of communication or the form of the instruments of service. But licensed architects and others who qualify for professional liability coverage are not the only ones at risk. Even now, contractors and others to whom design responsibility is distributed can be insured for their negligence in creating or furnishing design information. Other parties should have design liability coverage to pay on their behalf.

Integrated Practice Requires Contract Language
Although professional liability insurance does not hinder a collaborative BIM environment, commonly used professional service agreements do. Current contractual forms, whether consensus documents such as those produced in the AIA Contract Documents program or owner-generated agreements, clearly separate, define, and allocate responsibilities and risks among contracting parties. These agreements are based on a legal system that differentiates between design, as a professional service, and construction, as a contractual and warranty obligation.

With integrated practice focused on the use of a BIM model by a collaborative team, the ability to rely on the information contained in the database is pivotal. Without agreements detailing the sharing of information and the ability to rely on the shared database, integrated practice flounders. Therefore, as integrated practice evolves, contracts, too, will need to evolve to recognize allocated and shared responsibility for the generation of design information; authorize justifiable reliance on the information; assign the duty of updating and archiving the database; and provide compensation for the services, risks, efficiencies, and savings created.

BIM will have a profound impact on how our built environment is conceived and constructed. And its impact on whether architects continue to be licensed professionals or function as independent professional service firms also will be significant. Integrated practice may result in an entirely new envisioning of what an architect does, how an architect is treated by the legal system, and where the architect fits into a refabricated business model.