The Building in a Box (BiB) product is an ongoing design work at Wilkinson Building Advisors and the affiliated Sustainable Business Building Group.

The BiB product line plans to provide sustainable and energy effective solutions for such business use types as:

1. Commercial offices 
2. Retail 
3. Light industrial

This product line will offer low first cost and operating expense solutions. Features include:

1. High degree of off-site completion using structural integrated exterior panels and mass timber superstructure assemblies
2. A kit of parts shipped to the construction site for superstructure and enclosure assembly
3. Rapid and reliable on-site construction schedules
4. Use of materials and assemblies that are environmentally sustainable including emerging mass timber products
5. Point of use power generation and optional storage systems
6. Advanced indoor climate systems designed workplace safety, productivity and economy of operations

The BiB design and construction team will provide end to end services from early planning to the delivery of a complete and operable building and site. On-board training services will be available to assure that building operations achieve the high degree of energy efficiency built into the design.

As a footnote and for for the reader interested in bigger picture of how to improve productivity in the design and construction industry, here is some suggested reading by the McKinsey Global Institute:

Re-inventing Construction..

BiB engages SIP and CLT systems

The Sustainable Business Building group continues to envision a range of products that engage the structural integrated panels (“SIP”) and cross-laminated timber (“CLT”)

The sustainable commercial office is in the advanced stages of design.

Visible City and MSP real estate studies

Visible City is an applied GIS (Geographic Information Systems) developer and practitioner group.(https://www.visible.city) The Visible City’s team expertise extends across many aspects of planning for the man-built environment including insights into placement of real estate investments.

This post demonstrates several examples. (Visible City is currently collaborating with Wilkinson Building Advisors and the affiliated Sustainable Business Building Group’s Building in a Box initiative). Here are some work product examples.

Historical Access to Transit

“The attached image illustrates locations of individual properties built 50 or more years ago, located within proximity of major existing or planned transit stations in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area. In several of these areas, the transit infrastructure is not yet in service, but the market is moving to account for its future impact. Those parties that incorporate more data into their decision making about operations and investments, stand to extend their competitive advantage.” -Jon Commers http://www.visible.city

Accessibility studies

“Americans increasingly use transportation beyond the single-occupancy vehicle. Transit usage, shared car services, and micro-mobility options like scooters, are moving a growing share of passengers through the nation’s metro areas. Spatial analysis and interpretation can help decision makers understand these patterns in order to reconsider what locations most strongly match their needs of today with contemporary consumer behavior. “

“(Re: suburban car access) The attached image illustrates the area of accessibility for given locations that an organization might compare – existing or prospective sites, or competitor’s locations. The colored “travel-shed” represents the overall area from which a customer could reach the given location within a short period of time. Our approach is not only to establish the travel-shed, but to compare its characteristics – its community profile, its context in terms of building activity, transportation patterns, density of competition, and other metrics customized to a client’s needs and strategy.”-Jon Commers (Visible City’s Managing Principal)http://www.visible.city

Kristel Wilkinson (property management consultant), in collaboration with Wilkinson Building Advisors and it affiliated members in the practicing community has developed a preliminary program for “hardening” commercial buildings against transmitting viral infections. This program includes a range of simple low cost operational practices such as restricting toilet room access and populations as well as various hvac modifications for air quality and ventilation improvements.

Each building is different and one size does not fit all. For a no obligation assessment contact george@wilkinsonadvisors.com.

The guiding light for Wilkinson Building Advisors is to “Plan thoughtfully and act purposefully.” A pillar of the consulting practice is to help everyone “win” when the project needs fixing. Thus the title of this post: “Fix your project.”

Unfortunately, the need for “fixing” usually arrives after a design and construction project is in the advanced stages, i.e. construction is well underway. By then the “one-time manager” is feeling as though events are getting out of hand. The usual suspects are:

• The financial operations threaten  to break the budget
• The schedule is slipping and the needed opening dates seem unlikely

Wilkinson Building Advisors (“WBA”) is familiar with these types of situations and takes pride in finding solutions that avoid costly disputes in which there are no winners but the lawyers.

In connection with these sorts of matters, WBA does not seek lengthy engagements. Rather, working at the pressure points, the earlier the better, has proven to be the best path to getting the project back on track.

Check in with WBA and arrange for a quick opinion or referral to another expert.

Common sense….

In commercial life, it is a common best practice to have a business plan before spending a lot of money. This concept applies to planning, designing, and building (and paying for it). Why then is it so common to hear: “it cost more”, “the schedule was really late”, “I was disappointed in the design but it was too late to change”. Here is a perspective

A roadmap to best practice

Contracts are an agreement about how risk is allocated in the deal; risk is priced into the deal.

Each party to the contract negotiates for, and eventually agrees to the price of performance

The specter of risk sits on the shoulder of the contracting parties. When risk is substantially speculative, as compared to known, then contract negotiations and subsequence performance are distorted.

Many  processes in the AEC+dev industry are “poster children” to the proposition of contract and performance distorted by mis-allocated risk. Cost ignorance is high among the usual suspects.

Case and point is the classic design-bid-build delivery system. This process proposes that the contract sum for construction will be established after 70% of the design fees are expended and then only after considerable time and effort have been invested by those that pay the bill, otherwise known as the Owner. When the bids don’t conform to the budget, then the re-design process kicks in. In most cases the Owner pays that bill too: more time and money.

(Though a topic of another essay, there’s a popular myth in play here: the low competitive bid is the cost. This idea is examined in the text: “Design-Build” (Beard, Loulakis, and Beard”))

Consider these numbers with respect to risk allocation:

1. 70-75% of development period costs are “hard” costs; construction costs
2. A faulty sum of the parts estimate can miss the mark by 20%
3. Thus the speculative error is perhaps 15% of development period total cost
4. (5% or less is considered an acceptable tolerance in many circle)

With this much uncertainty in the deal, who carries the risk ?…. negotiations ensue. Is it the designer, or the builder, or the Owner? 

This writer’s premise is that cost analysis can only be based on market-derived facts and that these facts must be applied during the front-end work of project. These analysis resources can be brought to bear in a variety of ways and this topic is the subject of a series of essays also on the George Wilkinson articles on LinkedIn.

            • “Teaming, not the “Race to the Bottom”

            • “Essay to “Owners”: don’t waste your money, get started well”

            • “The New Owner (Representative)”

            • “ Ethics in design-build planning”

Examine your projects “fitness.” Go to Wilkinson Building Advisors and download the Project Fitness Guidelines.

Extreme Panels Technology in Cottonwood MN is changing how we build. Structural Integrated panels (“SIPs”) combine structure with high-efficiency enclosures and rapid on site assembly. Radically reduced construction periods combined with very low operating expenses make SIPs a BIG player in the design and construction of sustainable architecture.

Contact Terry Dieken or Don Jahnke at 800 977-2635 for more information.

Schadegg Mechanical, St Paul Minnesota, is installing these products at various customer sites.

Get the whole story here

Unofficial word is that the sales-engineering capability of SmartLam is growing. In Minnesota-speak, they are skating to where the puck is going to be as we all work our way through and out of the COVID era.

In this writer’s estimation, pent-up demand will be there for those that prepare now. For official status of growth at SmartLam, contact Steve Marshal: steve.marshall@smartlam.com

In the meantime Wilkinson Building Advisors (“WBA”) is skating as well. WBA and it associated work group are designing and engineering the next generation of small commercial and industrial buildings using advanced and sustainable building techniques. Today’s snapshot can be found at the blog post “Small Sustainable Commercial Buildings“.

These methodologies are also applicable to the emerging need for creating live-work environments for many of us working from home offices. Take a look at the blog post “Sustainable Live-Work Environments.”

[(disclaimer and attribution) This is not a Wilkinson Building Advisors project or work product. It is a work product by Extreme Panel Technologies, Inc in Cottonwood,MN; 800 977-2635. This image illustrates the concept of off-site fabrication of enclosure systems.]

[Recognition of the designer; Sarah Susanska; Ms. Susanka is an architect and house designer with a reputation arising from the theme of “The Not So Big House.”]

Wilkinson Building Advisors and its working group are planning a new and innovative way of designing, building, and financing environmentally sustainable and affordable small commercial buildings. In some cases, these building and sites will be configured as “Live-Work” environments Because these buildings will be flat packed ship to the the project site, the design has been dubbed: a “Building in a Box” (aka “BiB”). Note the image above

These buildings are designed for very rapid on-site construction and thus limiting the amount of disruption to surrounding facilities; work can often proceed in spite of Minnesota winters,

Read more elsewhere on this site….

Live-Work is not a new idea, but the national pandemic is pushing the idea into the forefront. Here is an interesting link in connection with real Live-Work projects. Wilkinson Building Advisors is coordinating an additional dimension to Live-Work: financing for energy sustainability features. To the extent that the building has a genuine commercial aspect, sources of long term financing are available.

Contact george@wilkinsonadvisors.com for Q+A and information.

:

First a diclaimer..

[(disclaimer and attribution) This is not a Wilkinson Building Advisors project or work product. It is a work product by Extreme Panel Technologies, Inc in Cottonwood,MN; 800 977-2635. This image illustrates the concept of off-site fabrication of enclosure systems.]

[Recognition of the designer; Sarah Susanska; Ms. Susanka is an architect and house designer with a reputation arising from the theme of “The Not So Big House.”]

Then the exciting and sustainable design concept: Building in a Box

Wilkinson Building Advisors and its working group (“Sustainable Building Group”) are planning a new and innovative way of designing, building, and financing environmentally sustainable and affordable small commercial buildings. Because these buildings will be flat pack shipped to the the project site, the design has been dubbed: a “Building in a Box” (aka “BiB”).

The Building in a Box  (“BiB”) product line will engage web-based commerce to rapidly deliver small commercial buildings with the following attributes:

• 3,000-9,000 enclosed square feet
• Your custom design assembled from a predesigned kit-of-parts on your site or our suggested locations
• Competitive first cost with substantial cost of operations advantages
• Lump sum and firm schedule proposals; operational cost estimates
• Rapid construction on your site using a high degree of off-site completion
• GAP financing of high-performance energy sparing features
• A constellation of advanced design and construction features
  • Use of low GWP assemblies and equipment (Global Warming Potential)
  • High performance enclosures systems for the Minnesota weather and low operating costs
  • Point of use power generation (PV solar organic to the architecture) and optional onsite battery storage
  • Advanced, applied building technologies: SIPs (structural integrated panels) and Mass Timber (including cross laminated timber)
  • Interior climate systems with “0” on-site combustion and enhanced filtration
• Site selection guided by advanced GIS (Geographic Information System) analytics when needed to support your business.

The national health crisis (COVID-19) raises specific challenges in connection with building design and construction. These requirements will no doubt be ongoing after the pandemic is brought under control. The systems used in BiB solution will address these issues including indoor air quality and other pathogen spread control features.

Also and in many cases, these designs will yield a “0 carbon footprint” when considering C02 sequestration in the mass timber components, the all-electrical indoor climate system, and the value of the Renewal Energy Credits resulting from the organic solar power generation system.

BiB solutions have an additional benefit due the energy effective nature of the designs: long term financing AND preserving capital for the core mission. All of the BiB designs will engage energy efficiency design and construction to add the incentive of long term financing.

Further, the Sustainable Building Group has is extending its capabilities to include optimal economic geography in the site selection prices (paraphrase: “using realtime data to plan urban investments” -Jon Commers)

Taken together, expert site selection combined with sustainable design yielding low operating expenses will be strategically critical for most businesses.

To learn more, contact…

• Bob Vanney at Vanney Associates, or
• Terry Dieken at Extreme Panel Technologies, or
• Jon Commers at Visible City, or
• George Wilkinson at Wilkinson Building Advisors

More to follow at this post…….