By Randall Vaughn, FAIA
Describe your journey to a position outside of a standard architectural practice.
My journey in this position began 25 years ago when I accepted a design studio director position with Gray. Prior to joining Gray, I served in an Architect project management role providing professional services for 11 years for a Lexington-based architectural firm, Sherman Carter Barnhart Architects (SBC). In that position, I gained broad design and project management experience and achieved licensure while working on public, multi-family, K-12, post-secondary, and commercial development projects. This laid a solid foundation for understanding the architect’s role in design/bid/build project delivery model. I was always curious about design-build project delivery, single-source. I joined Gray with hopes of applying those 11 years of experience in the design-build project delivery model.
Image: Gray designed and built a state-of-the-art bottling facility for Monin, Americas in Sparks, NV. The facility also includes corporate offices with high-end finishes.
Can you provide some insight into why you were attracted to design-build delivery, especially from the construction side?
I was attracted to design-build from learning first-hand the effort it takes to plan and execute construction activities. For years, I prepared construction documents and provided them to construction teams for bid without fully understanding or appreciating the effort it takes to pre-plan the construction process. In design-build, we already have a pulse on subcontractor availability, subcontractor resources, construction scheduling, unit costs, and material availability.
Thus, the design-build method provides architects insight into contractor constraints, such as labor force issues, labor costs, and building supply disruptions, which can lead to delays and cost increases. Our pre-construction efforts early in the project process identify potential cost escalations, material delays, and labor trade availability to execute the work. This insight affords project teams the opportunity to truly optimize building design, cost and schedule; mitigate potential risks/challenges; and anticipate any obstacles ahead that potentially could compromise the vision and purpose of a project. Contractually, design-build offers single-source contracting and streamlines contracts between owner, contractor, and designer.
Please describe how what you do differs from standard practice.
Professional services in design/bid/build and design-build delivery are similar, but design-build places greater emphasis on collaboration and integration of design and construction services simultaneously—while the project is under construction.
The design-build delivery model emphasizes schedule and cost. You’re designing the project and working through design, making numerous real-time decisions, all the while construction is underway. Many times, we’re working through the design process and the substructure and building structure are the only design elements that are resolved. Not knowing essentially how the final building design will resolve itself can cause some stress, but the process is also exciting. Ultimately, it brings greater value to customers, which is rewarding.
Image: Holding tanks in Buffalo Trace’s new bottling warehouse in Frankfort, KY, designed and built by Gray from March 2018 to June 2019. The project resulted in reduced product loss for the customer, improved operability and process maintenance, and preservation of the site’s historical nature.
What do you, as architect, bring to the institution, organization or business?
As an architect, I bring creativity, design thinking and problem solving to the business. The outcome—efficient and cost-effective solutions founded in architectural design—means our business is competitive; we typically respond to request for proposals (RFP) with a design-build, single-source response for both design and construction services. Thus, a nearly complete design must be generated in a relatively short time.
Because the projects are cost and schedule driven, they require teams to work cohesively to deliver the project in the most efficient manner. For industrial projects, this includes integrating manufacturing equipment and mechanization components into the design and confirming the infrastructure needed for turnkey projects. The process is complex and puts all the skills of the architectural profession to work in a fast-paced environment.
How does your perspective as an architect benefit the effort?
We provide the leadership to see beyond a project’s immediate needs to recognize the end goal and envision the outcomes in built form. Architects understand all aspects of a project and serve as the integrator for a project’s many components, including other design disciplines, numerous equipment vendors, and suppliers necessary to fulfill the project needs.
In addition, Architects provide building and energy code and compliance review for the hazardous operations often found in manufacturing facilities. The architect serves as the team quarterback tasked with coordinating the complex elements of industrial projects and integrating highly technical aspects of this building type into the design.
What would you most like other architects and/or emerging professionals to know about your work?
The work is very challenging and intriguing because, in designing for industrial markets, we often get to see the inner workings of how products are manufactured, assembled, and/or processed. These are usually products we as consumers use in our daily lives. The equipment in these facilities is quite intricate, expensive, highly specialized one-off components, requiring long lead times for their procurement, manufacture, shipment, and installation. The equipment is often many times more expensive than the building itself.
Understanding the manufacturing process requires a level of evaluation when you’re working to integrate these specialized systems into a facility’s site and building design and construction. Because of the hazards often associated with process and manufacturing facilities, our analysis and evaluation of building code is more intensive than for educational and or commercial developments.
What opportunities does being a design-build architect present to others who are seeking to use their architectural credentials outside of traditional/firm practice?
According to the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA), nearly 50% of annual construction dollars spent in America will be design-build delivery by 2025. This shows design-build holds a lot of opportunity for interested architects.
At Gray, we’ve found that the immense amount of integration involved with design and construction in delivering large complex manufacturing projects has opened the doors for fields including pre-construction, project management, procurement, project scheduling, building modeling (BIM), construction safety, and many more. Design-build involves many parts moving simultaneously in real time, requiring team members firing on all cylinders to achieve a successful outcome. The fast-paced nature of our work requires tremendous focus and attention to detail—skills in which we architects are very well trained.
Image: Gray designed and built a large distribution facility for sporting goods retailer Academy Sports + Outdoors in Cookeville, TN. The project was completed in 14 months and included extensive racking with an automatic storage and retrieval system (AS/RS). Spiral conveyors and other material handling equipment (pictured) facilitate fast movement of product throughout the 1.6 million s.f. facility.
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Randall Vaughn, FAIA, serves as Vice President of Professional Services for Gray, based in Lexington, Kentucky with integrated design offices in Charlotte, NC, Birmingham, AL. and Fullerton, CA. Gray is a pioneer in the design-build space and is frequently recognized with awards for its integrated offering. Gray’s industrial project portfolio includes projects in the food & beverage, manufacturing, automotive, and distribution markets. Randall serves as Architect of Record on projects with licensure responsibility for Gray.
He is NCARB certified and holds licenses in 38 states and 2 Canadian provinces. He serves as executive sponsor for training and professional development. He’s a member of NOMA and has served as the 2019-2021 At-Large member to the AIA strategic council and 2017 AIA Kentucky President. During his career, he has served on numerous local and state boards and commissions during his career. Randall is a University of Kentucky, College of Design alum.
(Return to the cover of the July 2023 PM Digest)