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Building in a Box (update 120720)

November 28, 2020

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.

GIS enhances investment in Sustainable Building

November 24, 2020

Small Sustainable Commercial prototype

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

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Property-50-Years-in-MSP-Transitways-1024x762.jpg

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

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-1024x678.png

Fix Your Project

October 11, 2020

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.

Sustainable Live-Work Environments and Financing

September 4, 2020

[(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.

:

Small Sustainable Commercial Buildings

September 1, 2020

Exterior panels furnished by Extreme Panel Technologies, erected in Dresser WI

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”).

BiB prototype by Vanney and Assoc

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

BiB variation
  • 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.
BiB variation (cont)

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.

Design and financial engineering combined..

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…….

Solar Ready Checklist

April 27, 2020

The little solar house at the Science Museum, St Paul MN*

About this update (6/12/20220)

This updates the solar checklist post: i.e. what to consider if deciding to make a PV solar investment. This update adds information about the financial engineering consideration for the investment.

The “Commercial Solar Design-Build+Development Group” at Wilkinson Building Advisors can help apply the following checklist to discover opportunities….the earlier the better. Review of commercial real estate ventures in the planning stage maximizes financial opportunity. Here are some thoughts about how to get started…..

The good news for the right commercial ownership is that the incentives in Minnesota (Xcel service areas) are compelling. In general they are:

  • Serving utility, direct connect incentives (net metering and the annual Solar Rewards rebate) for the 40kw (or less) arrays
  • Federal income tax incentives for the corporation that can utilize Investment tax credits and accelerated depreciation
  • State income tax incentive in the form of accelerated depreciation and elimination of sales tax
  • The MN PACE program which provides favorable interest rates and term on qualifying energy effective investments

In addition, skillful analysis of a (new or proposed) site and building may yield many cost effective alternative designs from which to choose, for example: ground mounted arrays, building mounted arrays, or roof mounted arrays. This is where working with a solid architectural and engineering team can make a good deal even better.

Roof mounted array by All Energy Solar

Planning with the solar energy checklist

Application of solar energy generation and use into a building project involves a sequence of planning, design, construction, operational actions as well as financial engineering.

In the case of an existing site and building what constitutes “solar ready”?

  1. Is there physical space on the building or site in sufficient quantity?
    • Open space on the site
    • Roof space on the building
    • Exterior wall space on the building
    • If the building roof is to support solar arrays, is the roof configuration suitable to support the solar equipment?
      • Is it strong enough?
      • Is it not in shadow most of the day?
  2. Does the local serving utility offer financial incentives? (Each utility service area varies).
  3. Is the federal and state tax status of the building ownership such that tax incentives can be taken advantage of? )(Are you filing as a C-form or S-form corporate entity?)
  4. Does it make sense for the owning entity to allocate its capital and credit-worthiness to the solar enterprise; i.e. is the pay-back period short enough?
  5. What incentives are offered by the state, county, and local levels of government?

In the case of a site and building project, all of the above considerations apply.  However, there are additional advantages:

  1. The physical plan can be laid-out maximize solar collection potential without sacrificing other requirements
    • The configuration of array’s supporting elements can be designed for efficiency, and cost effectiveness
    • The solar configuration can be part of the aesthetic and architecture

With the above ideas in mind, it is also important to remember that the tax status of individuals and corporations are very different. This has a fundamental bearing on the “go, no-go” decision. Can various tax incentives be applied?

Lastly, working with an experienced entity that can deliver all aspects of a well-engineered financial and physical solution is a key to success. Plan thoughtfully and act purposely.

Contact George Wilkinson ((612) 889-3792) or Dean Larson ((612) 685-9207) at Collins Electric for more information.

Sustainability after COVID-19

April 6, 2020

the globe turns at sunset

This post is written amid the COVID-19 global pandemic. This tragedy heightens awareness of how small and fragile this globe is and how much sustainability is essential in all matters.

I am a design-builder and see this matter through many layers but in the case of this post, I point out how intertwined solar energy and mass timber are as we all try to invent a future. Perhaps this future rides on the lessons of this spring and summer. Further, improved indoor climate is now critical. Here is a company that is responding: Schadegg Mechanical in St Paul, MN. They are evaluating various ways to improve indoor air quality including bi-polar ionization techniques:

Bipolar ionization announcement by Schadegg Mechanical

Additionally, the emerging mass timber and CLT design and construction technologies are now coming into their own. They are not the short term, low first cost choice but are the best for the planet in the mid and long term. See my post for a little more.

Lastly, the practical opportunities for what I call “organic solar” energy are passing the traditional financial engineering hurdles thanks to many federal tax law incentives and many programs operated by local serving utilities. In my lingo “organic solar” means photovoltaic solar energy generation systems that are integral to building and site, design and operations. They are best executed by “vertical stacks,: companies that plan, design, build, finance, and sometime own/operate. There are also emerging strategies that apply to retro-fit of existing buildings in addition to the typical roof-mounted solutions.

In other words: in the case of the future, it’s going to be different, like it or not. Sustainable building is inevitably in the mix.

Here are some of my posts on the matter. Note that I have included several in connection with financial management. They don’t attract the “reads” the way the timber and solar do but these actions are critical to turning the corner to feasible in ALL cases.:

Wood and heat pumps old made new again

The choice to build with mass timber

Solar ready checklist

Investors manage your risks

Essay to Owners: start well and save

Forbes on mass timber the path to sustainable construction

A focus on MS Teams

April 2, 2020

There is a reason that Teams is a fast growing platform. It is affordable, has wide application, and its learning curve is relatively flat. It is flat however only if some basic lesson are applied.

  1. Find a balance between central and decentralized control; the ability to form a new Team should NOT be controlled by IT but the role should be bestowed on persons who evidence basic understanding of how to use the platform.
  2. As in all matters involving standards of practice for an organization, there needs to be an active and informed executive. Advocacy and learning support are critical.
  3. Organizational best practices should be supported by some useful templates that define the Teams, Channels, Post, files hierarchy appropriate to the business.
  4. The rhythm, frequency of posts to a Team should support common understanding but not get to deep in trivia. Remember, the point is to inform and leave a record for the group (the Team) and not obscure concepts with unnecessary detail.
  5. The possibilities of engaging Guests should be fully explored and used where possible. BUT, beware that posts usually go to the entire team. Think carefully about guest selection, they usually get all the posts.
  6. Lastly, Teams is about working anywhere at any time the user can get on the internet. The mobile app for the iPhone is very helpful to stay informed.
  7. Take some time to learn in the early going. Don’t smother startup with top down controls; guide gently.

I’m a fan of Gini von Courter at LinkedIn Learning, her style helps us all to learn. Here is her current offering for Teams. It is time well spent:

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/microsoft-collaboration-sharepoint-teams-and-groups/collaborate-with-teams-sharepoint-and-groups

Wilkinson Building Advisors is what MicroSoft calls knowledge workers; more than casual users but not developers. If you need to tinker under the hood, contact Craig Yellick at BlueNet: 

cyellick@bluenetinc.com

Offer of help as we all pull together

March 30, 2020

As the recent international pandemic has painfully illustrated, internet communications and related computing is no longer optional. This is true for my industry: planning, design, and construction of buildings.

At this writing The Wilkinson Project Group (soon be dba Wilkinson Building Advisors) is providing complimentary support to persons and companies in our industry who are trying to get started and invest wisely (money and time) in the Office 365 suite of tools. We are NOT developers but rather so-called “knowledge workers” according to the MicroSoft hierarchy of learners. We are practitioners who have learned a lot over several years by trying and self-teaching. Thus, this initiative is named

DesignBuild360

In my estimation, MicroSoft has done a good job bringing us useful and affordable tools over the past several years. The tools are deeply integrated to web commerce and be bought (and turned off) as needed. In particular, spreadsheets are now better than ever; something very helpful to this industry. In fact, spreadsheets now can engage analytics and be a robust part of company operations (PowerBI)

All is not rosy however, here are a few recommendations and cautions

  1. TEAMS is a big deal to get rid of the tyranny of eMail. With a little setup help, it can bring organizational efficiency
  2. Monthly subscriptions can add up; take what you need and start slowly.
  3. Own the MS Office tool chest by subscription (Word, Excel….); everything stays current.
  4. If your business is spreadsheet based (such as estimates and budget reporting), PowerBI can be a game-changer. It’s worth getting some mastery.
  5. SharePoint is useful for content management (i.e. documents) but has a steep learning curve. The underlying logic is complex and usefulness can fall away quickly; get some professional help to get started.
  6. As you move forward from “newby” to User to Knowledge Worker, know when to get help rather than bury endless hours looking for that “unpublished” feature. Google is a gateway to a wealth of knowledge but be careful of the source date; 12 months is an eternity in the software world. MicroSoft has substantially ramped up its online documentation.
  7. LinkedIn Learning is also good; Genny
  8. Finally, MicroSoft phone support is world’s better than it was just a few years ago. Once again, reaching out often saves the day

My firm is here to help. I hope we do business in the future but for now the support is FREE. So, let’s all get through this together. A big dose of community will make a big difference as we all work to get to the other side of this pandemic. These forced learning times will transform ourindustry.

If you have read this post and find it useful, please pass it on to colleagues, workmates, and subcontractor. Let’s whack the virus, grow the learning tree, and  celebrate American ingenuity.

Support for MicroSoft Teams during the national emergency

March 21, 2020

This post recognizes that MicroSoft Teams (part of the Office 365 platform) is rapidly emerging as a powerful personal and business communication place. At this writing, the costs approaches zero, limited only by the skills of the User group.

For the next 60 days, Wilkinson Building Advisors will offer complimentary phone and web support for any person for business affiliated with the building planning, design, construction, and investment industries. Interested parties are encouraged to respond through this website or to george@wilkinsonadvisors.com.

Wellness mission at Wilkinson Building Advisors

December 15, 2019

Images courtesy of WoodWorks Wood Products Council and The Softwood Lumber Board
(Atlanta Botanical Gardens and Anderson Japanese Gardens Visitor Center)


A core mission at Wilkinson Building Advisors (formerly The Wilkinson Project Group) is to promote Wellness through the application advanced Mass Timber and Indoor Climate design and construction technologies. Though broadly applicable to wellness of persons and the planet, WBA focuses on education, health care, and housing. WBA works at the intersection of news, knowledge, collaboration, and best design and construction practices.

COVID hardening for Commercial Buildings

November 8, 2020

The Historic Hamm Building, St Paul MN

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.

Essay to Building Owners: Get it right before spending money

September 24, 2020

Frank L Wright Desert Home in No. Phoenix, AZ

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.

SIPS are changing how we build

September 23, 2020

Tam House in Dresser WI by Extreme Panels Technology

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.

Combating COVID-19 in hvac systems

September 16, 2020

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

Get the whole story here

SmartLam Growing Nationally

September 13, 2020

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.”

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Get in touch with us

10740 230th St. N.
Scandia, MN 55073

Wilkinson Buiding Advisors
george@wilkinsonadvisors.com

612.889.3792

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