Princeton University has filed a $10.7 million lawsuit against the design and construction firms responsible for the creation of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment complex at the school due to “extensive changes and delays” involved in the delivery of the project.
The Daily Princetonian reports that the Trustees of Princeton University are suing lead designers Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (TWBTA) and sub-consultants Jacobs Architects/Engineers, Inc. and Jacobs Consultancy Inc. (referred to collectively as “Jacobs Entities” in the lawsuit) in order to recoup extra costs incurred due to the delays, alleging that the team “failed to perform their professional design responsibilities in accordance with the prevailing standard of care, resulting in unnecessary and excessive additional costs and expensive project delays.”
Princeton University Deputy Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss tells The Daily Princetonian, “The University seeks to recover addition[al] costs it incurred due to extensive changes and delays those companies caused in the construction of the Andlinger Center,” adding, “As detailed in the complaint, TWBTA and Jacobs failed to meet their obligations in the construction of the Center, and the University is asserting claims for breach of contract and negligence, among others.”
TWBTA and Jacobs Entities have yet to comment on the suit.
The university, according to the report, is additionally suing for breach of contract between Princeton and TWBTA and, as a result, expects the firm to compensate the university for the additional costs incurred through the project. According to the report, the university alleges that the project was delivered 10 months behind schedule with roughly half of that delay due to the design and construction work performed by TWBTA and Jacobs Entities.
According to the legal complaint, the project resulted in the issuance of 87 Architect’s Supplemental Instructions (ASI) and 462 design-related Change Order Requests (COR), of which 438 CORs were attributed to “errors and omissions” perpetuated by the design team. An additional 17 CORs were the result of issues tied to problems with the BIM software used by the team, while seven of the CORS came as a result of “design-team-caused delays,” The Daily Princetonian reports.
54 Comments
BIM stands for Brain is Mush
#FOLK_PRINCETON!
The missing part of the story is who did the construction work and their role in all of this.
438 change orders due to errors and omissions? #FOLK_ TWBTA!
Time to get back to hand drawing; faster more accurate and self-checking — oh, yes, — you need to know what you’re doing — at least hand draw everything up to completion of design development; then the computer can take over.
Princeton, a university that teaches architects, may have a liability for promoting BIM; we reap what we sow.
How delicious = Baffling Idiocy Multiplied!
This is a totally ignorant statement. Put a pencil in the hand of an idiot and you'll get garbage. Same with BIM.
Correct; an idiot with a pencil will give the same as BIM;— pretty sneaky, pete.
I'm betting this on a ridiculous schedule, set up by the owners.
Could very well be. It doesn't appear that the Princeton newspaper reporter dug much into the story, they just listed the Owner's allegations against the architects and called it a day.
Right? I mean I know the plaintiff typically presents their best case, and the defense is mum, but this doesn't align with what we know about the design team.
I find it curious that the University decided to leave the contractor out of the dispute.
There's that. What about this, the project was what $100 million plus, and the lawsuit is for 10%? That's not a lot of dough, for a project of this type.
It's a lot for the architects. $10 million could easily be more than the entire design fee. That kind of money is also beyond the limits of insurance for many firms. In my community, the architect for a $10 million dollar public building project would only be required to carry $1.5 million in professional liability insurance.
Skim the docket (linked in the Princetonian article). There were contractual milestones that TWBTA repeatedly failed to meet. Seems like classic oversell / underperform. Suppose the Univ. could be at fault for 'moving goal posts,' but the re-design efforts seem to be mostly due to TWBTA being unable to hit the agreed budget range. Given the time lapse since substantial completion, I'd expect this to have been hashed out ad nauseam over the past few years, and TWBTA doesn't have much of a defense.
Skim the docket (linked in the Princetonian article). There were contractual milestones that TWBTA repeatedly failed to meet. Seems like classic oversell / underperform. Suppose the Univ. could be at fault for 'moving goal posts,' but the re-design efforts seem to be mostly due to TWBTA being unable to hit the agreed budget range. Given the time lapse since substantial completion, I'd expect this to have been hashed out ad nauseam over the past few years, and TWBTA doesn't have much of a defense.
Also; a little hard to feel bad for anyone who agreed to that indemnity clause....
"So our way of working allows us to have the experience of slowness.
Tools are connected to the slower capacity of the hand; the presence of
hand-drawn pages documents both the path of thought and the destination. The generalization of tasks means our office works not as an efficient machine, but as a loose and independent and somewhat inefficient family. The slowness of method allows us breath and breadth."
-Tod Williams and Billie Tsien On Slowness
Might just be some embedded deep seated philosophy that got them in trouble.
Times are a changin'
Huge commercial projects by a firm that’s run like an art studio.
What could possibly go wrong?
I'm theorizing that TWBTA was the design team and the other team was possibly tasked with the documentation of the project.
had a real world experience at a much smaller scale, but still public project between "artist" and "massive AE Firm" similar to this. The "artist" i worked for and so did another guy with tons of fabrication experience, sure it was hard to understand the artist, but the C Team we got from AE Firm was obnoxiously dumb....wondering if that happened here?
In my experience the production firm doesn't let the design firm screw around. Emery Roth (as production) didn't let us get away with anything on the NYC high rises. Jacobs is a major global firm, hard to imagine them screwing up a simple project like this. There isn't anything that they haven't built. But who knows ... all depends on the structure of the contracts and the depth of the pockets. Jacobs annual revenue is $15b - they can easily spend more on lawyers than the suit is worth.
I aim to agree with you on this, those firms are organized, have checks and balances for change orders and issuing anything...wondering if the 7 design change orders were actually cause of 438...I think this generation (William and Tsien) especially with their dedication to drawing don't actually understand building. My personal experience is this older generation had to always draw everything....which then begs the BIM question - did they just trust the BIM people and not draw it?
back to previous point though,
one engineer said "you can't do this artwork over streets and highways, you just don't build stuff over streets and highways."
to which fabricator responded to "you mean besides bridges right? something your firm does a lot of."
....and that's when I learned the engineer joke -
"What is an engineer?"
- "A train conductor, a one track mind."
"EA" would be a better descriptor for Jacobs. They or other firms where engineering and "project management" (bean counting) are dominant would not be the first people to come to mind to serve as an AOR for a fancy firm like TWBT.
Sued by your alma mater. That’s gotta sting.
"According to the complaint, the University contracted TWBTA to perform design services for the Andlinger Center project in February 2009. Construction began in 2012 and was “substantially completed” in January 2016. This completion came approximately 10 months behind schedule, and the complaint alleges that at least five months of that delay are attributable to the actions of TWBTA and Jacobs Entities.
According to the complaint, TWBTA and Jacobs Entities issued approximately 87 Architect’s Supplemental Instructions (ASI) between June 2012 and June 2017. An ASI constitutes “a formal notice issued from an architect to address and resolve minor, non-contractual, issues that might arise during the construction process.” "
Something's fishy. The entire framing of the "argument" seems to be a major CYA by Princeton.
"Designed to avoid a monolithic presence, the center appears to be several buildings. But it is actually one contiguous structure in its lowest level, much like an iceberg. While the building hunkers low in the landscape, its towers rise above the complex. Despite more than 60 percent of the building being below street level, light infuses the structure. Various spaces connect to gardens and three courtyards, which echo the University’s ivy-decorated plazas."
From the Princeton.edu website. I couldn't read any further.
happy anarchy's comment is what i wondered as well.
TWBTA write on their website that they work slow by way of a personal philosophy that implies construction is also part of the design process. If Princeton hired them they surely knew that going in. Unless they previously had a website that said they work super fucking fast and never change anything even when the design gets buggered as a result, and dont give a shit about how things come out when they hit the construction site. In which case the change orders and supplemental instructions would be weird. I doubt that is what they promised their client in this case somehow. Its like expecting Pete Zumthor to work quickly.
The failure of BIM is a bit of a red herring. If there is any assumption possible based on the meager amount of information in the above is that TWBTA and their AOR are not used to BIM and this project is their learning curve in action.The building itself seems a perfect BIM project on the face of it. Nothing weird or special other than the nice detailing, which is pretty much just about craftsmanship rather than invention. Or it could be something else entirely. Who knows?
Could be they got suckered by the BIM sales juggernaut and tried it for the first time; if you are used to hand drawing mistakes are easy to spot because the drafts person leaves the area unfinished, working around it — the computer drawing is perfect immediately; every one of the thousands of computer drawings I’ve seen contained huge errors, even ones in books or maps by National Geographic; I never, ever trust them, always going to a hand drawn or photographic source; BIM draws every nail but all we architects care about is the paint film — we hand draw the paint film with the knowledge of what holds it up; so our drawings are absurdly simple, self checking by the very efficient methods we use — BIM reverses this simple process to concentrate on what holds up the paint film to disaster results with so much information the paint film is lost = Baffling Idiocy Multiplied = Change Orders.
Um. No.
What in the fuck?
Sounds like Jerome's brain might have trouble handling multiple thoughts at one time.
No, doubt; pretty sneaky, pete.
Projects like this are the result of boards and committees, budgets and politics. TWBT were picked for political reasons. The idea that website verbiage - even if anyone bothered to read it - supplants contractual language is absurd.
In this respect b3ta’s idea that someone at Princeton is covering their ass is likely part of the equation. In the end it’s never just one thing, it’s a combination of factors. A large part of being a successful architect is navigating treacherous waters.
it's also quite possible that TWBTA didn't do much of anything wrong but need to be named in this as part of the lawsuit in order to get at the work of the consultant - Jacobs. princeton's spokesman certainly seems to make a point of saying both office names together at every mention of the defendant...
i went full RWCB on this and found the legal complaint - the design contract is fully viewable (good resource!)
Jacobs is not the AOR nor design engineer, only the consulting architect for labs and classrooms. So if they are being specifically named in this, the problem must be with the labs or classrooms. Labs being complicated and expensive, seems likely there was some indecisiveness about equipment and space requirements that bogged down the project, and now PU needs a party to blame. TWBTA is involved only becuase they oversee Jacobs contract.
https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/New_Jersey_District_Court/3--19-cv-21248/THE_TRUSTEES_OF_PRINCETON_UNIVERSITY_v._TOD_WILLIAMS_BILLIE_TSIEN_ARCHITECTS_LLP_et_al/1/1/
let's let the amateur legal hour begin!
Wowza! thanks for finding this.
(b) Project Schedule. Prior to execution of this Contract, Princeton University has established the Project schedule. Princeton University will update the overall Project schedule as necessary.
(c) Construction Budget. Prior to execution of this Contract, Princeton University has established the Construction Budget for the Project, which is based on the Project Requirements described in paragraph (a) above. The Construction Budget for the Project is $102,290,000.00 as more fully set forth in the Part II Project Description. Note that the Construction Budget has been established using current year dollars (March 2010) and that Princeton University will account for all escalation in its overall project budget (and not in the Construction Budget). An increase in the Construction Budget by Princeton University due to escalation shall not be a reason for an increase in the Architect-Engineer’s Fixed Fee, nor in the Specialized Consultant NTE Amount nor the Reimbursable Expenses NTE Amount.
(d) Review and Approval of Documents; Responsiveness. The Princeton University Representative shall examine the documents submitted by the Architect-Engineer and shall render decisions pertaining thereto promptly to avoid unreasonable delay in the progress to the Architect-Engineer’s Services.
(e) Existing Conditions Documents. Upon request, Princeton University will provide access to and copies of all available drawings and other documents describing the physical characteristics of the site of the Project. Architect-Engineer shall rely upon the completeness and accuracy of any and all information provided by, or on behalf of, Princeton University.
(f) Surveys. Princeton University will provide surveys of the site as mutually agreed upon with Architect-Engineer, and the Architect-Engineer is entitled to rely on the accuracy of such surveys.
This part, I hate;
(9) Redesign. If the lowest bona fide bid or negotiated proposal exceeds the Construction
Budget, Princeton University shall, at its option:
− give written approval of an increase in the Construction Budget;
− authorize rebidding or renegotiating of the Project within a reasonable amount of
time;
− terminate this Contract in accordance with Article XV; or
− cooperate in revising the Project design to reduce the lowest bona fide bid or
negotiated proposal.
If Princeton University requests that the Architect-Engineer redesign the Project, the Architect-Engineer,
as part of Basic Services and without additional compensation, shall modify the
Construction Documents for which the Architect-Engineer is responsible under this Contract as
necessary to comply with the Construction Budget. However, if the Contractor’s Statement of
Construction Cost (or the reconciled Statement of Construction Cost where the Architect-Engineer
has retained a cost consultant) is greater than the Construction Budget due solely to
Contractor’s estimating errors, lack of reasonable efforts to maximize subcontractor competition,
or other reasons within the control of the Contractor, then any redesign services performed by the
Architect-Engineer shall be considered an Additional Service.
Great work! I suspect too that the lab redesign is responsible for the over-runs.
Will be interesting to see what comes of this (and if it remains accessible to the public ... usually these things get settled out of court with NDAs, etc.). It looks like midlander is on the right track re: Jacobs and the scope of the suit (issues with labs and clean rooms). The filing document makes the case that TWBTA failed to coordinate properly with Jacobs and vice versa which resulted in the costs and delays. None of the other consultants are named or issues with their scopes of work discussed, etc.
The most concrete example given is about the material for some exhaust ducts in the clean room that was changed from galvanized steel stainless steel. Princeton's own independent consultant they hired to look at this agreed that galvanized wasn't correct, but differed from Jacobs on whether stainless steel ductwork needed to be lined with PTFE. It seems the complaint (at least in this example) is that the plaintiffs were negligent in not coordinating this sooner, and also not making the decision to change more expeditiously resulting in 3.5 months delay in BIM coordination, shop drawings, fabrication, and installation on the contractor's end. If that affected the project's critical path, I'm sure the owner would want to try to recoup that cost.
There are way too many things that could be involved with this example that would be fun to speculate about, but it would be interesting to know what caused the change in the first place. Was it really negligence in that Jacobs didn't realize they needed the different duct material for this clean room, or was there information that was brought up late in the game that caused the change ... like the university changing how the rooms would be used? Was some type of stainless steel ductwork always the intent, but the specs and/or details (probably copied from a previous project) indicated galvanized steel as a default and no one caught it until later? I could go on, but as I said, it would just be speculation.
Regardless, I'm sure some of us have been on projects like this where these things don't seem that out of the ordinary. I know I've worked on some where it wouldn't surprise me if something like this happened. The approach to the project's design and construction seems fairly normal for the types of projects I've worked on like this (CMc sets GMP on early design documents that aren't complete/coordinated, multiple changes issued later as the design and documentation is finalized, consultants not committing to anything until they are confident that there will be no more changes that might affect their scope, CMc and their subs assuming things that are not indicated in the documents so they can put together the GMP, change orders or threats of COs because "that wasn't in my bid" ... etc.)
Not sure how it happened, but my use of "plaintiffs" above should actually be "defendants" ... I'm blaming it on 2019. Glad to be done with that MFer.
They should be sued for how stupid the design is. What is it about monolithic forms with arbitrary openings that sells?
This is nonsensical and without any merit.
I assume you mean thayer's comment. Par for the course. It doesn't have cornices or metopes.
What does arbitrary window openings even mean?
There are probably functional reasons for why they located the openings where they are, but we know one can arrange the interior one of a hundred ways and still make it work well. Look at the two sides of the composition though. The left has stacked windows while the right has openings which make the building look weak and unstable. One side is boring but rational, the other side is clearly made to be the abstract art part. Either way, it's stupid looking, but par for the course.
Please define "stupid looking" without using the words in the definition.
Again with these nonsensical, unsupported arguments. Do a diagram or something.
Stupid looking is a matter or opinion, just like a McMansion is stupid looking to me, even though people snap them up. So I can't make a diagram or support an argument based on aesthetic preferences, but I've explained the schizophrenic, or arbitrary look, to my eye at least. I also know that most people I'd ask would look at this building and think it looks stupid, something you pick up when you take people's opinions to heart . Either way, thanks for engaging civilly.
Most people aren't educated in design, however, if you take the time to educate people they would not come to a simplistic evaluation.
I'm all for educating people, but do you really think that people will like something if they're properly educated? Most people aren't educated in cuisine, but would you tell them they should like what they don't? That's where you get phonies. Maybe there should be an audio in front of buildings so people will understand the architect's concept. Like Louis Armstrong said, 'if I have to explain it, I shouldn't play it.'
I also know that most people I'd ask would look at this building and think it looks pretty awesome, something you pick up when you take people's opinions to heart. Prove me wrong.
You're infantilizing the public. I'm not asking for top explain it, education is not explaining.
"The left has stacked windows while the right has openings which make the building look weak and unstable" - Thayer-D
On the one hand, you continue to stack up your comment count with these so-called 'critiques of modernism', on the other hand your 'arguments' have always been weak and unstable.
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