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Architects are regularly required to provide documentation in trade package form. Architects should consider any additional documentation and coordination work required to deliver documentation and specifications in trade packages and whether this is included within the agreed services. The Institute’s 2019 Client Architect Agreement (CAA2019) has provision for nominating trade package documentation services as included, excluded or additional. Fee disputes can arise when there is a variance between the expected services to be delivered.
Conventional documentation provides a single complete documentation package for tender and construction purposes, and subcontract tenders are prepared using complete documentation packages. Using trade package documentation requires that each trade package is standalone and must include all information required to prepare a tender for that part of the works.
Typically, a trade package will include:
- relevant large-scale drawings (including sufficient drawings to assist the tenderer to understand the context of their work)
- relevant construction details (including sufficient details to assist the tenderer to understand the context of their work)
- relevant schedules
- specification preliminaries
- relevant parts of the technical specification.
An architect’s scope of services for trade package documentation may include:
- assisting the appointed programmer in preparation of agreed program trade documentation packages
- providing documentation, including relevant drawings, specifications and schedules in trade package format
- providing matching specifications for each trade package
- providing a set of standard preliminaries suitable for inclusion with all trade package documentation
- coordinating client-appointed consultants in preparing trade package documentation for specialist sections of the works
- assisting the client-appointed building contractor/construction manager/project manager in responding to queries from trade contractors.
Care must be taken to review each package to ensure it includes all relevant documentation. Particularly close attention should be paid to cross references relevant to the trade scope of works in both drawings and specifications.
Before documentation can be prepared in trade package form, the construction manager/project manager must provide a schedule of the trade packages that are proposed for the project. In order to avoid disputes, the construction manager/project manager must also take responsibility for approval of the content of the trade package before tenders are called for that package.
Architects will also need to coordinate the specialist consultants' contribution to each trade package as well as their contribution to the specialist consultants' packages.
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