CONSULTANTS IN THE NIGERIAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

 As mentioned earlier, the Nigerian construction industry can still be termed to be in its early stage of development. The services rendered by consultants as offered in developed countries are not widely understood in our country and as a result, consulting is often overlooked and/or undervalued in a majority of projects in the country. Part of the problem could be the shortage of high quality consulting services in the country due to years of economic depression and continued patronage of foreign consultants for significant commissions by the government and other large project clients. Today only a handful of international standard consultants exist in each major city in the country with a large concentration of these elite firms in Lagos and Abuja.

As result of the wide spread dearth of consulting skill and the neglect of involving quality consulting services in planning and designing our built environment, the poor state of our cities can be seen all over our landscape. The deplorable streetscape, Landscape and architecture can be seen in most towns and cities. Areas where good consulting practices have been applied like the city of Abuja stand out as testimonials to how we should champion the improvement of our built environment.

The process of construction is supposed to be guided by the following process;

1. Client expresses need for a built project.
2. Client selects architect either by reference or conducting interviews of several on a short list. (Selecting architects by bidding is not recommended practice because proper architects charge similar fees as a percentage of construction costs. Those eager to undercut their colleagues often do not provide full services as recommended internationally and by the Nigerian Institute of Architects for good quality projects)
3. The architect may hire other necessary consultants as sub-consultants or the client may choose to hire the other consultants directly. Often, the QS is hired directly by the client for budgeting and cost control.
4. The consultants put together designs for the client’s approval. Thereafter, detailed working drawings are made along with material specifications and bills of quantity. These detailed documents form the contract documents.
5. With the contract documents prepared by the consultants, several contractors are invited to bid for the construction contract. They are issued the contract documents to inform their bid or tender.
6. After the tenders are opened and the contractor is selected based on his quoted price and completion period, a contract is entered into between the client and the contractor. As mentioned before, the basis of this contract is the consultants’ contract documents.
7. During construction, the consultants administer the contract. This essentially means that the consultants periodically checks to ensure that the contractor carries out the work as stipulated in the contract documents. (The word ‘supervision’ is often erroneously used in describing the consultants’ work during construction. Well designed, detailed and accurate contract documents as well as a good contractor who knows how to interpret them make it unnecessary for consultants to closely ‘supervise’ the work and keeps cost variations to a minimum.)

In the construction industry, we can classify consultants into major and minor ones

MAJOR CONSULTANTS

• ARCHITECTS: For construction projects involving people dwelling or use, architects are responsible for taking all the information pertinent to the project like site location, function of the facility, local building technology, needs of the promoters including cultural or corporate bias, time constraints and budget and conceive the building or project with due consideration for all these parameters (these parameters are often called the brief). The architect then engages the other consultants and coordinates their efforts in designing all aspects of the building and documenting the designs in drawings and specifications.

Aside from leading the consulting team, the architect is responsible for the overall design of the building, the building interior, the roof and wall envelope including all doors, windows and exterior finishes. He is also responsible for the site layout including parking and other site amenities.

• STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: They are responsible for designing, detailing and specifying the structures on projects. This starts with the design of the building foundation depending on the soil type, the ground floor slabs and the columns and beams that hold up the slabs. They may choose to design the structure out of steel or wood or other material, depending on the architect’s design request.
• mechanical ENGINEER: They are responsible for designing, detailing and specifying the mechanical services on projects. Mechanical services include air-conditioning and mechanical ventilation (heating is included in temperate climates). Also included in their scope is plumbing which entails the calculation and design of water supply needs, waste and storm disposal means. In larger projects they are responsible for specifying elevator, escalators, conveyor belts and other such machinery.

• ELECTRICAL ENGINEER: They are responsible for designing, detailing and specifying the electrical systems on projects. The electrical system design starts with the calculation of all electrical loads in the building ensuing from the use of lights, power outlets, mechanical systems and any other device that needs electrical power.

• CIVIL ENGINEERING: This aspect of projects deals with the design of access roads, storm water drainage and structures external to buildings. In larger projects where required, civil engineering could include coastal protection and bridge design.

• Quantity Surveying: The QS, as this consultant is often called is the project accountant. Based on the architect and engineer’s design, he creates the project budget, which he constantly updates as the project drawings and specifications get more detailed. After the final working drawings, he prepares the bills of quantity including the conditions of contract for the owner/contractor contract. This bills together with all the consultants’ drawings and specifications form the tender documents given to prospective contractors to bid for constructing the project. When contract tenders are received, the QS analyzes the tenders to ensure correctness and compliance with the tender request and advices the architect and client on contractor selection.

During construction, the QS carries out periodic valuations of work done by the contractor and advises the architect on value of work done to date for use in the preparation of the architect’s payment certificate.

MINOR CONSULTANTS

We term these consultants ‘minor’ not because their work is any less important but because they may or may not be required on all projects. On smaller projects, the architect usually carries out the duties of these minor consultants as needed. On larger or more specialized projects, where greater expertise is needed in these particular areas, these consultants play key roles. They could even be prime consultants when their scope on projects is the main work.

• LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT – He is responsible for designing the spaces between buildings. This professional conceptualizes outdoor space use, function and aesthetics. On building projects, they design walks, flora and fauna planting, parks, outdoor activity areas, playgrounds, water features including fountains, lakes, pools and the like. More specialized landscape projects include arboreta, zoos, botanical gardens, Nature preserves and game reserves.

Landscape architects are also effective urban designers. They are responsible for designing streetscapes, which include planning pedestrian ways, cycle paths, motorcycle and motorways. Also included in urban design is the design of street fixtures like lights, trash bins, sitting areas, planted areas and decorative areas like plazas with water features.

Unfortunately, this profession hardly exists in Nigeria today. The lack of attention to the design of our environment is the reason for the poor state of our cities compared to even other developing countries in Africa much less streetscapes of the first world.

• INTERIOR DESIGN – For more effective design of the interiors of buildings, the Interior design profession was created. This is different from interior decoration (interior decorators are mainly for residential projects). This specialization was created due to the increasing body of knowledge and multiplicity of materials and specifications for the finish and furnishing of interior spaces in the developed world. Where employed, interior designers conceptualize design of interior spaces and pick finishes for floors, walls, ceilings. They specify and detail built-in furniture and movable furniture like chairs. Filing cabinets and systems, and systems furniture. Projects that are critical for interior designers include hotels, hospitals, airports, corporate and retail environments of international standards.

• GRAPHIC DESIGN – Graphic design is a wide field that encompasses the design of images and language to communicate via different visual media – print, billboards/outdoor and electronic. We shall concern ourselves to graphic design as related to building projects.

Graphic design on projects includes way-finding signage, poster/mural design and statutory signage for toilets, exits, handicap, smoking and other such facilities. Good graphic design is critical in large projects used by large volumes of people like major airports, shopping centers, stadiums and large hospitals.

• GEO-TECHNICAL/ SOIL ENGINEERS: they carry out investigation on the soil and recommend soil-bearing capacities based on observed soil properties before structural engineers can determine appropriate foundations for the building structure.

• LAND SURVEYOR: Every project should have the landed property surveyed before the architect starts the detailed design. The land surveyor records all existing features on the land like the levels, the boundaries including the exact dimensions and angles, as well as the North direction on the site. He should also indicate NEPA poles, pits or water features, underground utilities buried on the site and in the easement to the street and any other significant feature on the site.