Originally published on March 19, 2019 by BNP Media through the Building Enclosure Blog.
It was supposed to usher in the next generation of high-performance projects – where silos would be destroyed, building information modeling (BIM) would be harnessed, and both risk and reward would be shared across all major stakeholders.
Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) has been touted for its many potential attributes. As a collaborative project delivery method, IPD utilizes the talents and insights of all project participants through all phases of design and construction. It fosters early goal definitions, collaborative innovation and decision-making, shared risk and reward, and (in theory) positions project teams to have greater success toward realizing high-performance outcomes.
IPD Basics
One can find plenty of resources exclaiming IPD’s philosophical underpinnings. For instance, see Integrated Project Delivery: A Guide published by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 2007.
In fact, the AIA has done an outstanding job of defining specific structures between Owner, Architect, and Contractor with regard to IPD. Through AIA Contract Documents, one can preview any AIA model contract for IPD free of charge. In general, the AIA has defined three “levels” of integrated project delivery:
- Transitional Forms (e.g., Documents A195–2008, A295–2008, and B195-2008) are modeled after common/traditional construction manager agreements and offer a comfortable first step into integrated project delivery.
- The Multi-Party Agreement (Document C191-2009) is a single agreement that the parties (i.e. Owner, Architect, Contractor, plus any additional Parties) can use to design and construct a project utilizing integrated project delivery.
- The Single Purpose Entity (SPE) creates a limited liability company (LLC) for the purposes of planning, designing and constructing a project. The SPE can be comprised of Owner/Architect/Contractor (per Document C195-2008) OR Architect/Contractor (per Document C196-2008) in which case, the A/C SPE would need to enter into a contract with the Owner). The SPE allows for sharing of risk and reward in a fully integrated collaborative process.