When you think about active learning for the residential Design/Build process, what language do you use to describe your experience?

General Contracting?

Vocational Education?

Technical Education?

Architecture?

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Whatever word label you use to describe active learning during the Design/Build process, be careful your word choice doesn't compromise your understanding of home architecture and construction.

The point is to avoid the constraints of "labeling" by allowing yourself to remain open to the full range of concepts and facts and thoroughly engage the spectrum of information provided by the variety of professionals with whom you come into contact.

Each construction professional - Construction Manager, Architect, Engineer, Contractor, Supplier, Manufacturer, Inspector, Realtor, Lender - comes to the Design/Build process with specialized information from years of education, training and experience. Intellectually embrace them all !!!

By recognizing the natural connections which actually exist among the professions, you accept the roles of the various players, the contributions each make, and utilize the complex information base provided by the specialty of each profession.

However, to really get a grip on the Design/Build process, you must contend with the simultaneous interaction of ideas and events.

There comes a time when you leave the comfort of a local library, your office, or the kitchen table and begin to relate ideas to actual events.

You discover your endeavor to plan, organize and control a residential construction project is both an art and a science.

Although your preparations are decisive and rational, there's a chaotic side to the experience which demands you remain a creative problem solver.

In reality, a modest number of possible Design/Build solutions will be considered, and there's no way of telling whether your solution choices are the best because so many other possibilities may go unexamined.

These "unexamined possibilities" will become the surprises, the challenges, which test your character and ingenuity.

Major changes in the marketplace - technology, specialization, and participatory styles of management - are having a major impact on how individuals interact with one another and become positively involved in the residential Design/Build process.

Nothing will replace your ability to think critically and analyze the unique circumstances surrounding your project.