This week the students learned about project scheduling and cost estimation. The students were able to look over actual project schedules and construction cost estimates, while the mentors talked about how – and why – each are developed.

As a team, we then took some time to create a draft schedule and cost estimate for our project – the arts addition to a nearby high school. The team reviewed the various project elements we’ve covered in the past five months and how each of those elements has a construction duration and cost.

Once the cost estimate is complete, the students will compare it with the project budget to determine if we will need to scale back the project cost. This “real world” exercise forces the students to consider the financial impacts of their design. The students chose to include a window-lined sky bridge in the design, for example. The sky bridge is certainly aesthetically pleasing, but may need to be revisited as a feature if the estimate comes in over budget.

For the second half of the session, the students split up into smaller groups to divide and conquer the project’s remaining loose ends in preparation for final presentations. The building floor plans were recently updated and needed to be distributed to the HVAC team. The building structural plans and site plans for the outdoor amphitheater also needed some work.

At the end of the session the students chose which area of specialty they will be presenting on. In the coming weeks the mentors will be helping the students prepare presentation boards and PowerPoint slides, as well as coaching them on the art of public speaking. This is the last big push before the project deadline.

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Team 2, of which I am a mentor, does not have a resident mechanical engineer on board to provide expertise, so we reached out to find a professional willing to talk to the students about this week’s subject: MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) engineering. We were fortunate to have guest mentor Justin Rebitzke, of Interface Engineering, speak to the students about his line of work and the role mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems will need to play in their design project – the arts addition to a local high school.

After Justin’s presentation, our team had some discussion about what MEP design features we would like to include in our design. In addition to the standard MEP building elements, the students decided to include photovoltaic rooftop panels, a rainwater catchment system (allowing for collection and storage of rainwater for reuse) and an elevator.

The students and mentors then split up into smaller groups to divide and conquer. One group worked to finalize building sections, which we started in a previous session. Other groups worked on the MEP layout and reflected ceiling plans.

As the students starting laying out the MEP on the already developed building plan, they started to find that the existing building floor layout wasn’t allowing for an ideal layout of the MEP systems. The students did what they could to conform to the already proposed floor plan, but found that some design elements required a change in the layout. For example, the existing layout did not allow for the addition of an elevator; the students, however, thought it was important to provide wheelchair access to the second-floor classrooms of the addition.

The students working on the MEP brought this up with the larger group, and the team decided on a way to rearrange some of the offices in order to provide for an elevator. The mentors were sure to mention that this is the type of back-and-forth conversation that architects, engineers and contractors have with each other on a regular basis. We highlighted for the students that successfully working through complex projects often requires communication between various disciplines; something the students are starting to experience firsthand.

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It’s hard to believe that the ACE season is already halfway over, but last week was the midterm review. The review session is meant to mimic a 50 percent project review, where the students (“the consultants”) present their drawings to the other teams (“the clients”) and receive questions and input on what they’ve put together to date.

The four ACE teams that meet on Tuesdays gathered at a large conference room at the office of David Evans and Associates. Each team divided into four groups to create new mixed groups of students and mentors.

The mixed groups rotated around the conference room, spending 10 minutes at each team’s pinned-up drawings. At their project’s station, the students of that team spent 10 minutes presenting their design to the other members of the mixed group.

My own team, Team 2, has been developing drawings for the arts addition for a high school in southeast Portland. The students from Team 2 discussed key design elements, like a sky bridge that connects the addition to the main school building, and how this feature influenced other design decisions, like the floor plan of the rest of the addition. By opening their design to the scrutiny of a peer review, and also by providing review for others, the students were forced to critically think about their project.

Once each mixed group had been around to each project station, the students and mentors met with their usual team members to talk about what they learned or had seen during the review. Our role as mentors will now be to encourage the students to take what they learned from the midterm review and use it as an opportunity to improve their project for the final presentation in May.

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