The De Young Museum in the News: View articles from local news organizations following the history of the new Museum and broad spectrum of viewpoints on the project's site, design, funding, and impact on the city of San Francisco Case Study Process: View the case study team's minutes from meeting with various parties involved in the project Internet Resources on the De Young: Follow links to web sites which provide additional facts and opinions about the Museum, including the web site of the project's owner, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
  Who Was Involved: View a list of parties involved in the design and construction of the Museum as well as the members of the case study team What Were the Team's Milestones: View assignments for the UC Berkeley Building Stories (A229B) and Internship (A128) classes What was Found: View the case study team's initial findings regarding the key issues defining the project

 

Fall 2002 Department of Architecture
UC Berkeley

 

DIVISION OF LABOR and PARTY COMMUNICATION: The separation of responsibilities between the design and prime architects required all parties to approach the project in a highly structured way and demanded clear and continuous communication. Because Fong & Chan was responsible for developing Herzog & deMeuron's design into a set of buildable documents while remaining true to the project's design intent, decisions made by the prime architect as well as consultants often demanded several levels of discussion (i.e. structural engineer, to prime architect, to design architect, back to structural engineer) to ensure adherence to design intent. This protracted communication process meant that the design remained pure at the expense of a timely, efficient workflow.

TYPICAL WORKLOAD WITH PRIME-DESIGN ARCHITECT STRUCTURE

In typical architect partnerships, the design architect's workload decreases as project progresses, with the least number of manhours put forth in the Construction Administration phase.


WORKLOAD WITH DE YOUNG STRUCTURE

With the deYoung, Herzog & deMeuron's workload is decreasing as the project progresses, however the firm is still putting forth more manhours during the latter phases of the project than is typical for an architect partnership. This partnership will further complicate communication as the project moves into Construction Administration.