The Brooks Act is a significant piece of legislation for those in the architecture and engineering industries (read the full text of the law). The definition on Wikipedia is "the Brooks Act is a United States federal law passed in 1972 that requires that the U.S. Federal Government select engineering and architecture firms based upon their competency, qualifications and experience rather than by price."
Two Reasons this legislation makes sense to me:
First, it gives preference to quality over cost - and explicitly so. Simply, you get what you pay for. A lower fee firm will likely have less quality control during the design and engineering process. As stewards of the taxpayers' money, the government attempts to secure the greatest value in procurement (something that, despite the negative press, is presented to me daily at my job in the Leasing Division at the General Services Administration). Professional experience can pay off in long-run by avoiding costly rookie mistakes.
Second, it gives small businesses an equal opportunity of being awarded the contract. The principal of economies of scale gives advantage to large firms when basing the selection on price alone. The government prefers to invest in areas that can spur needed growth as demonstrated by side-asides for small businesses. According to our textbook, Construction Contracting, A Practical Guide to Company Management, "Small design businesses are identified by the U.S. Small Business Administration as those with annual gross billings of less than a specified maximum average value."
The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), provides a description of how to use Qualifications Based Selection as set in the the Brooks Act. Basically, it breaks the process down into "seven basic steps involved in pursuing federal design work under QBS:
1. Public solicitation for architectural and engineering services
2. Submission of an annual statement of qualifications and supplemental statements of ability to design specific projects for which public announcements were made
3. Evaluation of both the annual and project-specific statements
4. Development of a short-list of at least three submitting firms in order to conduct interview with them
5. Interviews with the firms
6. Ranking of at least three of the most qualified firms
7. Negotiation with the top ranked firm."
We had been married less than a year when my husband told me he wanted to change his educational pursuits from Business Administration to Architecture.....my first thoughts went something like this clip from YouTube. We also looked up the profession Occupational Outlook Handbook and asked, "are you really, really, really sure?"
Yes, he was really sure and in spite of struggling through the long hours and grumpy moods that came along with earning his Bachelors and then Masters degrees in Architecture my opinions have changed. Fittingly, I found this video on YouTube while looking for the previous one - it describes my current feelings pretty succinctly.
Aside from my own feelings, I've noticed the feelings of others as well and it surprises me how strong the opinions are about architects. It seems its a love'em-or-hate'em situation trapped in a can't live with'em, can't live without'em paradox. I for one, love'em ;)
Task #1 - Architectural Software
After reading the assigned ehow article I asked my husband, "what do you know about architectural software?" The answer was longer than I expected. Actually, his first words were "geeze lady, I could talk about this for hours." Luckily, for me he didn't. I think I got his basic opinions and I've listed them below (I probably lost some of that listening credit I mentioned earning in Online Task 1).
AutoCAD: a digital drafting table. Which is a nice way to sketch rapidly - a virtual pen to paper. Advantages to AutoCAD are speed and shallow learning curve.
Building Information Modeling (BIM): has a much steeper learning curve. Overall it improves efficiency in the long-run but it can't be used without AutoCAD. One system he has experience is Revit, "a Building Information Modeling software developed by Autodesk. It allows the user to design with both parametric 3D modeling and 2D drafting elements."
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