english why24

To view the entire course, click here:
https://blackspectacles.com/courses/u...

Learn about Types of Lighting for your Unity scene in this video tutorial.

Join us as we discuss Construction Documents & Services with Mike Newman. Using a mock exam, we’ll cover all of the most perplexing and difficult topics in this division of the ARE.

With these practice questions, we will explore issues related to contracts & different business entities, construction processes, and how to calculate & set your fees.

These tools will help you feel comfortable demonstrating your understanding of understanding of codes, sustainability, and how to tackle the Section Vignette.

Take the mock exam here: http://bksp.es/2haFH59

Take your career to the next level using our online suite of ARE Prep tools. Watch videos while cooking dinner, take an exam with your coffee, and review flashcards on your evening commute. You can access your tools anytime, anywhere - your study materials will always be at your fingertips. Black Spectacles is the first and only NCARB Approved Test Prep Provider for all 6 divisions of ARE 5.0.

To learn more, visit: https://blackspectacles.com/are-5-exa...

Join us as we discuss Construction Documents & Services with Mike Newman. Using a mock exam, we’ll cover all of the most perplexing and difficult topics in this division of the ARE.

With these practice questions, we will explore issues related to contracts & different business entities, construction processes, and how to calculate & set your fees.

These tools will help you feel comfortable demonstrating your understanding of understanding of codes, sustainability, and how to tackle the Section Vignette.

Take the mock exam here: http://bksp.es/2haFH59

Join Black Spectacles and Mike Newman for our Project Management discussion. We will be using sample mock exam questions as an opportunity to discuss some of the more vexing topics, as well as delve into strategies for answering. This will be a good introduction to the types of problems that you are likely to find on the Project Management exam and how best to respond.

With these practice questions, we will explore the management of architectural projects and its minutiae, such as organizing principles, contract management, and consultant management.

These tools will help you feel comfortable demonstrating your understanding of and abilities in quality control project team configuration, and project scheduling.

https://blackspectacles.typeform.com/...

ARE Prep powered by Black Spectacles-
blackspectacles.com/courses
Mike's Recommended Resources to pass the ARE:
http://blackspectacles.com/blog/books...

Mike: So, I'm going to jump ahead here on the slide to...

Frank: Oh, okay. You're going to talk about the test.

Mike: Let's just jump into the exam.

Frank: Because we don't have much time left.

Mike: Yeah, we're doing okay. So this slide is getting at what Frank was just talking about. If you look, those are list down the side here, this is the current exam, and the seven different topics. So there's Construction, Documents and Services, Programming, Planning and Practice, Site Planning and Design, Building Design and Construction Systems, Structural Systems, Building Systems, and Schematic Design.

And you'll notice that each of these, if you think of the easiest one to think about is probably Structural Systems, that these are essentially set up as silos, that these are...so this exam is all about all the contracts, and this exam is all about the structural issues, and this exam is all about all the systems issues.

And that's not how architecture works. Architecture really works that we're either in the early phases of a project and we're worried about all the things that happened in the early days, or we're in the end phases and it's during construction, or we're in the design phases. And so all of those things are all mixed together.

And so the folks at NCARB have come up with a new ARE 5.0. The current one is 4.0. And the 5.0 is set up on this idea, those same names that Frank was just talking about. So, it's Practice Management, Project Management, Programming and Analysis, Project Planning and Design, Project Development and Documentation, so construction document sets essentially. And then...

Frank: And specification.

Mike: And specifications, yeah, and then construction and evaluation. So, evaluation referring to post-occupancy evaluations and that kind of thing, and construction referring to CA, construction administration type work. So, clearly there'll be structural issues happening in many of those. There'll be systems issues happening. There'll be contract issues. So, it's a different way of approaching the same set of information. It's a different way of grouping those things together.

Frank: Sure. I think it's much better than the current way. So it'll be an improvement, but if you haven't yet started taking the 4.0, because 5.0 is coming up pretty quickly, what NCARB is recommending if you wanted to streamline your whole test process, is to take three of the tests under the 4.0, which will continue to exist until 2018, mid of 2018, take three of them under 4.0, if you're ready to take the test right away, and those three are the first three on the list here.

Once you have completed those, you only have two more in 5.0 to take. So you get credit for all the 5.0 that those will encompass, as you can see Mike is drawing a big circle around them. And then you only have two more left. So, in a sense, you can cheat it. They're recommending this. You can cheat the process by only taking five exams instead of six.

Mike: So the little dots...

Frank: Or instead of seven under the current...

Mike: Right, exactly. The little dots are talking about the content areas that you see. If you take away those first three under 4.0, then what's left is just these two exams under 5.0, and they will let you do that. You can take...

Frank: Not only that, they encourage you to do that.

Mike: Right. Well, partly because they don't want people to say, "Oh, it's a new exam coming. We'll wait and suddenly you get this bit two-year gap and people get out of the practice of preparing for that.

Frank: Now, I have to say if you've already finished some of the other, some of the specialty divisions in your structural or building systems. That's fine, and you can continue to take 4.0 until it's phased out...

Mike: 2018. June, 2018.

Frank: ...which 2018, so you have plenty of time to finish it.

Mike: Yeah, and there's no reason to...I think what you're suggesting is just be strategic about taking it. Take these three ones first, so you can...if you need to switch over, you could switch over to 5.0 at that point.

Frank: Yeah, you're probably not going to save any money. They haven't said how much the new test is going to be, but my guess is this is probably going to be just the same as the existing.

Mike: Yeah, it'll be similar.

Frank: They're not reducing the price. But you will save time. That's the big advantage.

Mike: Yeah. So, right now, my suggestion is just take the exam. Just go and take the exams.

Frank: Yeah, jump in. Jump in.

Mike: One of the things people get very nervous about, like, okay, so this is the mandatory, the old guys in the room have to say this that when we took the exam...

Download the Mock Exam:
http://bksp.es/cds-mock-exam-2016

ARE Prep powered by Black Spectacles-
blackspectacles.com/courses
Mike's Recommended Resources to pass the ARE:
http://blackspectacles.com/blog/books...

Mike: All right, number three, "A performance specification relies on," let's see. And then answer A would be commissioning to confirm performance one year after substantial completion. Answer B would be a description of how a material needs to perform without specifying the maker of the material. Number C would be a series of at least three choices of each material topic. And then D, the addition of "or equal" in order to provide opportunities for the contractor to find cheaper but equivalent materials. So what this is really talking about is, there are two basic kinds of specification books, and the two basic kinds are proprietary and performance.

There's a couple different names, there's lots of different versions of each one, but the two ideas here are, proprietary is when I say, "All right, here's the thing I want you to put in." So let's say it's, an example I usually use is carpet. Let's say it's a particular kind of a carpet, and so I'm going to say it's a Mannington or it's another carpet maker, and I'm going to give you a specific example of a particular carpet, and the model number, and all the accompanying information. And then the contractor, when they bid the project, is going to include that particular carpet choice in their estimate, and then when they build out the project, when they've been chosen as the GC, would actually install that particular carpet that you would…it's a proprietary. You've said a particular named project, a named material.

Sometimes proprietary, you might have three different named materials. That's a classic thing, give a little bit of variety so that for some reason, one of them is much more expensive than you thought, then that gives you a way of giving a couple of choices, sometimes giving three, just gives…One contractor may have a relationship with one distributor, and another contractor may have a relationship with a different distributor. It's not really a reasonable thing to choose a contractor based on the fact that their carpet supplier doesn't carry the specific one that you chose. So there's bunch of reasons that you might have more than one name, but essentially a proprietary system is where you're naming the particular materials. So it could be hardware for doors, hinges and handles, and that kind of thing, it could be carpeting, it could be different drywall types.

Anything that's being named, it would be a named thing where the specific maker and model would be given. That's proprietary. A performance spec is where you're saying, "Okay, I'm not going to give you the name of the material. What I'm going to give you is what I need to have happen from this material." So for the carpet you might say, it has to be a carpet that has a flame spread of such-and-such, and an acoustic NC rating of such-and-such, and a durability rating from whatever the durability folks on carpets would be of whatever that important thing you would need. And so you would be giving what performance you need to get from that carpet, or from that door handle, or from that drywall system.

And then the contractor's job is to then find an appropriate material that meets the performance. So this is kind of a funny thing, it's two very different ways of approaching these different ideas of how you approach choosing materials. One is that the architect is in full control and is naming the products, and the other one is saying, "This is the kind of thing we need, this is the performance we need. Find us something that you think will be good." And the whole point of a performance specification is that if the idea behind it is, if the contractor has the freedom to look around and find something that meets all the needs, they have a strong desire because they're bidding against other contractors. They have a strong desire to have their number be lower.

And so they're looking for a way to bring the numbers down, but then they still have to meet the performance. And so the idea here is, it's a way to get the contractors to find better, cheaper materials that still meet the performance that you need them to meet. So when you see a question about performance specifications, it's almost always about helping the owners get a cheaper building, because you're providing enough information that the contractors are able to get the right kind of product that's going to meet the performance needs, but that they have the choice to find cheaper versions than maybe the architect even knows about. One of the things you'll notice is that when you something and you get one of those big binders from a manufacturer, they almost never have the price list in them.