Design Manager: who is the design manager in practice?

Design Manager who is the design manager in practice is the second article of a series of articles about design management in architecture practice. In this article, I am going to illustrate what is a design manager in terms of his field of profession whether it is architecture, civil engineering mechanical engineering, or another. The type of expertise he should possess such as architectural experience in design and construction, Tools and techniques of architectural design such as methods and software. Academic knowledge and practical training and development and handling project design management.

Professionals from different fields of engineering as well as architecture hold the position of a design manager. In my previous work with local and international companies, I witnessed various professionals holding the design manager position. A consultancy firm, local in Abu Dhabi, had 60 ongoing projects of various scales and types residential development, oil, and gas petrol stations, university campus, industrial buildings, shopping mall, and infrastructure projects these projects increased my expertise in project design management. Before I joined the company there was no design manager only the managing director, project design management was a senior architect’s responsibility. They called me for an interview by downloading my CV from an online job board. After I joined a couple of days they informed me that after a while you would be handling the design manager position. The managing director from a civil engineering background and experience working in the army engineering department was handling all the departments and, as he informed me it was very hard to handle all the work, that he was facing some difficulties with some of the engineers. Various problems appeared through his work with his teams. Problems like communications with the team, work quality submitted to authorities and clients, delay in conducting project tasks as per the timeline, improper evaluation for the required time to accomplish a task, and previous design manager defects in communication and engineer’s improper behavior. This is a design manager from the civil engineering field who lacked project design management expertise.

Another company I worked with is a Japanese construction company a design-built contract for an airport in the same city. The project manager here is from a mechanical engineering field which was in a position to handle all design manager work in the design and construction phase. In the design phase, some problems appeared like architectural design issues and compliances with the mechanical, because it is a district cooling plant project, authority approvals problems appeared in the beginning, the consultant assigned by the company and his complaints about the design, subcontractors, and sub-consultants designs alignment problems with the company plant design such as the piling depth and the soil type problems. Here the project manager though from the mechanical engineering field managed to push forward the project by meeting with the architectural team occasionally and listening and understanding their concerns. This way he developed great knowledge about architecture work and process. After four months I was upgraded to handle the design management of the project, project design management, and sustainability requirements for the projects till handover. See Figure 1, site construction photo of the TES tank in Abu Dhabi New Airport.

A leisure and commercial project I worked on, a global village project, was handled by a mechanical engineer though the project do not require a mechanical engineer but an architect. The project manager, the mechanical engineer, was successful in processing the project and monitoring the engineering teamwork quality but he had a problem in employing the architecture team. Problems appeared like delays in completing tasks due to the team’s low experience in conducting engineering work, consultant complaints about the work presented to him, and the person in charge in most meetings was not available but only the project manager. When I joined they handed over the project to me to take care of as design manager. I employed a team that balanced the company budget and required experience, directed the team to the path to prepare the detailed design as per architecture standards and company standards, and informed one by one on how to estimate the time required to accomplish a task in the design process, and how to coordinate the detail work with the factory and workshop. Worked with the team till the successful project design management outcomes delivery.  

Types of experience tools and techniques related to design management work are essential for any design manager in work in practice. In practice, many methods are developed by professional bodies, international firms, universities, and researchers. To mention some like the Total design method, the Sutton effect, sustainable project appraisal routine, and many others. See Figure 2, a presentation graph of the sustainable project appraisal routine.

Architectural design is governed in terms of work, time, and process by the project design management plan. Every task has a specific time limit that cannot be extended but only in special circumstances. Achieving the graph method in the architectural design method is not practical and feasible because it takes a lot of time to accomplish. For that, the design manager has practical knowledge of the architectural design process, sustainability, environmental requirements, structural design knowledge, and mechanical knowledge. He takes care of meeting all the professionals as per the design plan whenever planned or required. This way a lot of the firm’s work is saved from waste and decreases unnecessary spending. The design manager possesses construction practical knowledge about building systems and how they are erected and for that, in the design phase many related design issues are considered. For example an architectural design of a building that a structural design includes a cantilever of more than 3m needs to be considered in different structural systems like trusses, Vierendeel, waffle slabs, and decking systems.

Building an architectural design from scratch to handover requires the use of software that suits every stage rather than the conventional system. A design manager passes all the phases of professional upgrade from junior level to senior level. So he has full knowledge about using many engineering platforms to prepare architectural designs like Microstation, Autocad, Revit, Rhino, Grasshopper, Sketchup, and others. Every software was invented for specific reasons Revit was developed from Autocad and 3dsmax to produce BIM software that makes firms work easier and more accessible by all stakeholders like clients and contractors. A design manager evaluates what is required for every stage in terms of drawings and documents what software can assist in producing them and what level of quality. See Figure 3, BIM 360 software used in consultancy firms work.

It is not apparent in practice from my experience in consultancy work that a design manager must or should be an architect. But to make the work more practical and feasible it’s better to have an architect as a design manager to handle the design management work and project design management. For many reasons, for example, he possesses the expertise of all the design phases process, tools, and techniques to handle the production, evaluating professionals and their work because he was in the process before, he can manage competition as one of the main reasons that could make problems between the staff, has the expertise of what are the factors that make defects in the architectural design, his evaluation of quality work makes him capable of evaluating outsourcing work companies when required, architects base design managers are better in presenting many stages architectural design work and that reduces the staff required in presentation work, architects are better to apply, possess, and to train staff for many certificates like LEED, PMP though not required, design management, and business management. A design manager from an architecture base will be fitter when having a higher degree in business management because his work requires client contact and business development as well as human resource activities.