Development of Expanded Multidisciplinary Collaborative Experiences Across Construction and Design Curricula

For many construction and design firms survival, is arguably predicated on their ability to work together with other organizations. The demands of time and budget placed on these industries by building owners challenge traditional project delivery methods, to which industry is responding. Conversely, many academic institutions continue to neglect the opportunity to collaborate between the design and construction aspects of building by ignoring shared responsibilities. Those that provide opportunities often do so in limited amounts of time or with a limited number of students. This paper presents an undergraduate academic initiative that fostered collaboration between architecture and construction management students, a model which is now proposed to become the basis for a collaborative experience for every construction student in the department. This is significant because pedagogical models for teaching many topics such as conceptual estimating, pre-design services, or sustainability within the two curriculums have historically been discipline-specific, further contributing to the continued lack of interaction between design and building education.