GLOSSARY

Bridging Documents

Bridging documents are a partial design prepared by an owner’s own architect or engineer, typically developed to somewhere between 15 and 35 percent, and used as the basis for soliciting design-build proposals that complete the design and build the project.

BRIDGING: WHO TAKES THE DESIGN HOW FAROWNER’S BRIDGINGDESIGN-BUILDER COMPLETES AND BUILDS0%25%50%75%100%PERCENT OF DESIGN COMPLETEAT THE RED LINE: DESIGN-BUILD CONTRACT AWARDED, PRICE SETBridging documents fix what the owner cares about most:program, layout, appearance, performance criteria.Typical range 15 to 35 percent design; varies by owner.
The owner’s consultant develops the design far enough to define the project, then design-builders price and complete it. The bridging architect often stays on as the owner’s reviewer. Illustrative.

Bridging sits between design-bid-build, where the owner designs everything, and pure performance-based design-build, where the owner describes only what it needs. The owner fixes the decisions it cares about most, such as program, layout, appearance and key systems, and leaves the rest of the design, and the risk that comes with it, to the design-builder. The owner’s bridging consultant usually stays on to review the design-builder’s work.

What bridging documents usually include

  • Program and layout. Space counts, levels, entries and exits, circulation and adjacencies.
  • Appearance. Massing, facade intent and materials where they matter to the owner or community.
  • Performance criteria. Structural, mechanical, lighting, durability and technology requirements stated as outcomes.
  • Site information. Surveys, geotechnical data and permitting constraints, with clarity on who carries what risk.

Why owners use bridging

  • Keeps control over the design decisions that are hardest to specify by performance alone.
  • Gives competing teams a common basis, so proposals and prices are comparable.
  • Lets an owner use design-build where policy or politics require a visible design before award.

What to watch

  • Design liability. If the bridging design has errors, responsibility can blur between the owner’s consultant and the design-builder.
  • Over-bridging. Taking the design too far removes the design-builder’s room to innovate and erodes the reason to use design-build.
  • Paying twice. The owner funds two design teams; the value has to come from better outcomes or faster delivery.

The Parkonomics view

Bridging works best when the owner is precise about outcomes and restrained about details. In parking that means specifying the things that last, such as floor-to-floor heights, slab capacity, electrical capacity and conduit for future technology, while leaving the structural system and equipment choices to the team that will build and guarantee them.

Related terms: Design-Build, Progressive Design-Build (PDB), Design-Bid-Build, Best Value Procurement, Construction Manager at Risk

Further reading: Procurement Is Still Buying the Past While Parking Has Moved On