Design Professional Review of Submittals under the AIA Documents

AIA Requirements

AIA Document A201-2017, General Conditions of the Contract for Construction, defines the role of shop drawings as the means to show "how the Contractor proposed to conform to the information given and the design concept expressed in the Contractor Documents for those portions of the Work … requir[ing] submittals.…"

Submittals, which include shop drawings, fill various functions in construction administration. Some are purely administrative, such as those documenting that operating or training manuals have been provided. Others are the contractor's means of communicating what it intends to construct or what the general contractor or its subcontractors may design.

Delegation of parts of the design by the project's design professional is common; no architect or engineer can design every detail of a project. Plus, owners cannot afford the cost of a design professional trying to design the most minute details, and some design responsibilities are routinely delegated to contractors. The shop drawing process formalizes the method for a contractor to show how it will meet these design obligations.

Sometimes, the design professional may only tell the contractors the performance requirements the completed work must meet. The specific design of how to achieve that performance is left to the general contractor and those under its contractual umbrella. This allows those with greater knowledge to design and install certain aspects of the project. Common examples are curtain walls, steel connections, or HVAC systems. The submittal process forces the contractor to show how it intends to execute the work and lets the design professional review those intentions for compliance with the design intent.

Of equal importance is understanding that submittals are not part of the "work" as defined by the AIA contract documents. The Contract for Construction and the General Conditions incorporated into the owner-contractor agreement obligates the contractor to "fully execute the Work described in the Contract Documents.…" There needs to be a determination of what is captured in this definition of "Contract Documents."

The items constituting contract documents are the drawings, specifications, agreement, general conditions, etc., which is an AIA definition that has remained consistent for decades. The notable absence from the list is submittals. The General Conditions state specifically "submittals are not Contract Documents."

The Architect's Review

The architect must review submittals and take the proper action. The architect's obligations are in the General Conditions and in AIA Document B101-2017, Standard Form Agreement between Owner and Architect.

The architect's obligations are limited by comparison to the contractor's. Review is limited to checking for agreement with information in the contract documents and the design idea. The architect's review must meet the approved schedule or, without a schedule, it must be "reasonably prompt."

The design professional's review responsibility explicitly excludes obligations for the accuracy and completeness of details such as dimension and quantities, installation instructions, or equipment performance. These remain the contractor's obligations.

Strangers to the project agreements may try to impose liability on the design professional based on the review and approval of shop drawings. Careful attention must be paid to the contracts. The General Conditions are clear that the architect's review is not approval of safety precautions or construction means or methods, techniques, sequences, or procedures.

Failure To Review, Nondelegable Duties, and Gross Negligence

No discussion of shop drawing review and liability can be had without discussing the 1981 Hyatt Regency skywalk collapse in Kansas City, Missouri. The collapse of a set of skywalks during a social event resulted in 114 deaths and 186 other injuries. The structural engineer's license revocation hearing gave rise to an appeal reported in Duncan v. Missouri Bd. for Architects, Prof'l Eng'rs & Land Surveyors, 744 S.W.2d 524 (Mo. Ct. App. 1988). This Missouri Court of Appeals opinion is discussed in almost every legal commentary on the topic of submittal review. It is a valuable, though somewhat nuanced, lesson.

The landmark Duncan opinion arose from the licensing board's discipline of the structural engineer, Daniel Duncan. At the hearing level, Mr. Duncan was disciplined due to his gross negligence in failing to review shop drawings and other professional misconduct.

During the shop drawing process, changes were made by the fabricator to how the steel rods would be connected, which were used to suspend the skywalks. The connections were special connections, meaning they were "nonredundant." If a nonredundant connection fails, the structure fails.

The change in the connections was due to fabrication issues. The steel supplier proposed to the structural engineer to use a two-rod system, as opposed to one continuous rod as shown in the engineer's design, to suspend the second and fourth floor skywalks. The supplier submitted shop drawings to the structural engineer for review and approval showing this change.

The licensing board concluded Mr. Duncan did not review the shop drawings for compliance with the Kansas City Building Code for agreement with the design concept as required by the structural engineer's contract or for the information in the contract documents. Regardless, the engineer approved the shop drawings.

The Missouri Court of Appeals found review and approval of these shop drawings to be an engineering function. The court noted the structural engineer's in-house policy called for a detailed check of all special connections during shop drawing review. The structural engineer knew of the change to a two-rod system but did not review the connection.

The court concluded that shop drawing review by the engineer was contractually required and universally accepted as part of the design engineer's responsibility. The engineers conduct from initial review through shop drawing review showed a "conscious indifference" to his professional duty. The court concluded Duncan breached a nondelegable duty.

Conclusion

The design professional's review of shop drawings is a limited but crucial step in achieving a complete and safe project. The architect or other design professional needs to be sure to follow its contractual obligations and complete the necessary review while refraining from interference with the contractor's approach.

In other words, read and follow the obligations delegated to you whether you are the architect, engineer, or contractor.