It is evident that over the past approximately 35–40 years, our construction sector has played very active and effective roles both domestically and internationally across many criteria, and in international evaluations, many of our firms rank at the top of the lists in terms of the number of projects and contract values.

It is well known that services from foreign designers are utilized in many domestic construction projects, and that working with foreign designers is necessary for overseas projects due to the designs prepared by employers in the host countries. In these projects, foreign designers typically develop the project during the concept and preliminary design phases, after which a local architectural firm further develops the designs into construction drawings. The same may hold true for other disciplines as well. Furthermore, it is a fact that in many cases, design firms based in Turkey provide design services to clients in foreign countries.

Although foreign architects carried out many projects in Turkey during the early years of the Republic, collaboration with foreign-based architectural firms increased in the early 1990s, both for domestic projects and for projects undertaken by Turkish firms abroad. Examples of such projects include the selection of American architect Kevin Roche through an invited architectural concept competition for the Eczacıbaşı Group’s pharmaceutical plant site in Levent, and the selection of ARUP Associates from the United Kingdom through another invited architectural concept competition for the cultural center project the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) sought to build in Ayazağa.

Throughout my professional career, I have also had the opportunity to gain experience working with foreign project designers. Here, I will attempt to share some aspects of these experiences that may still be relevant today.

This project was developed in the early 1990s by the U.S. architectural firm Kevin Roche (KRJDA) but was never implemented. Irish-born architect Kevin Roche began his career working at the Saarinen architectural firm—a father-son partnership operating in the U.S.—and after the successive deaths of the Saarinens, he took over the firm with his colleagues, going on to create significant projects under the name KRJDA. For this project, TTG was engaged for structural engineering, while BBJ handled the electrical and mechanical disciplines.

On the Eczacıbaşı project in Levent, the design work carried out by K. Roche until the final design phase was completed was halted by the client’s decision, and another project was subsequently implemented on the same site.

Through the work carried out with K.Roche, many topics were explored, including American standards. To execute the construction projects in Turkey, local designers were consulted, and agreements were reached with architectural, structural, electrical, and mechanical teams. This ensured that these teams participated in the work starting from the preliminary design phase and coordinated their efforts with the foreign design firm.

TTG, the firm that prepared the structural design, performed a dynamic analysis of the project using computer modeling—a technique that was still in the early stages of development at the time—which was a first in Turkey.

The project also yielded a great deal of new knowledge regarding the structural design of high-rise buildings. In fact, during a visit to New York, when we met with the architect at a restaurant on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center—which would later be destroyed in the September 11 attacks—and were asked, “Do you feel a slight dizziness?” we learned that tall buildings experience swaying and that New York and Chicago have different building codes regarding this issue. I recall that when asked which code was in effect in Istanbul, our side responded with something to the effect of, “You can base your design on the most suitable code from those in the United States.”

Working with a firm like Kevin Roche on this project broadened the horizons of all parties involved and allowed them to gain experience in many different areas.

The British firm Arup, which won the competition for the IKSV Ayazağa Culture and Congress Center—another project carried out during the same period—set out to prepare our project as a well-known international project and engineering services group at the time. It was a project of considerable scale and quality for the era and stood out for its concert hall. It should be noted that among the features the ARUP team prioritized most, acoustic properties took precedence. While the acoustic team within ARUP worked to advance their studies using strings representing sound waves on the project’s scale model, the experienced manager of the acoustic group never failed to remind the team that the quality of the design could only be verified once the first concert had been successfully held. The facility’s 3,000-seat concert hall, designed for “natural sound,” took care to draw on the experience of similar venues worldwide, particularly the Berlin Philharmonic’s hall designed by Sharoun.

During the contractor selection phase of the project, ARUP strongly urged the client to ask the prospective contractors about the construction method for the main hall’s steel roof. Indeed, the contractor who stated that he would construct the steel roof without erecting scaffolding won the project bid. This solution made it possible to work inside the hall while roof construction was underway.

Although more than half of the rough construction had been completed, the project could not be finished due to a shortage of labor. In the following years, significant sections—including the main hall—were demolished, and the project was transformed into a different concept comprising a cultural center, a shopping mall, and offices, finally being completed around the mid-2010s.

In the early 2000s, I had the opportunity to serve as a project manager on the contractor’s team building the Islamic Art Museum in Doha, the capital of Qatar, based on a design by the renowned architect I.M. Pei. While Qatar had long maintained a modest profile, the revenues generated by the natural gas reserves discovered in recent years led to major investments beginning in the 1990s. The Emir of Qatar had also commissioned architect I.M. Pei—whose fame was cemented by his design of the Louvre’s glass pyramid—to design this project. The project owner, acting on behalf of the Qatari government, was Qatar Petroleum (QP), and the project manager was Turner International from the U.S. The design teams—comprising architects and other disciplines—were represented on-site by full-time staff. The Turkish contracting firm had to operate in an environment where concepts such as fabrication drawings, material approvals, mock-ups, and method statements—as expected by the design team and the client—were meticulously implemented. The contractor struggled to effectively organize in areas where its experience was insufficient, to assemble experienced teams, to use the Primavera scheduling software, and to manage documentation through the Prolog program, which it was just getting to know. Representatives of the designers also attended the weekly construction progress meetings. Shortcomings and delays were addressed in no uncertain terms. Issues and delays related to the work schedule and quality were raised through the project management firm.

To examine the natural stones to be used in the project’s cladding and define the acceptance criteria, visits were made to stone processing factories in France and Italy together with the designer and the client; samples of sufficient quantity and size were examined. The stones were evaluated based on color, pattern, and geometric criteria, signed off on, and documented in a report. Mr. Pei, smiling, mentioned that he had used stones from France in many of his projects and that this was why it was said he had become a partner in the marble company. Having a permanent quality control officer on-site at the factories where the stones were produced, as required by the specifications, was helpful in mitigating quality risks. In addition to its many other features, one of the riskiest and most challenging aspects of the construction of the Museum of Islamic Art—which is built on an artificial island created over the sea—was the application of colored concrete. The admixture required to cast the colored concrete in the same shade as the stones sourced from France was a material that was hard to find and difficult to procure. At one point, approximately 20 metric tons of the missing admixture had to be flown in by a private plane from the western United States. The concrete specifications stipulated that the 90 cm-thick floor forms had to be removed 5 days after pouring. The specifications meticulously defined that the reinforcements required after such early removal on floors 7 meters high must not leave any marks on the concrete surface. Repairing the 1,600 small domes created with colored concrete beneath the slabs would under no circumstances be accepted. However, when a serious color issue arose in the first poured slab, Mr. Pei’s remark, “Oh well, just paint over it,” caused the large team to break out in a cold sweat. The issues encountered in the formwork details of this floor, the lighting fixtures, and manufacturing concerns were tested repeatedly using mock-ups—examined each time by experienced architects from Pei’s office—before production was approved. The results must have pleased I.M. Pei, who was in his 80s at the time, as he expressed his appreciation during the building’s opening visit, remarking, “It turned out to be practically prefabricated quality,” and the building was honored with the 2007 American Concrete Institute’s Corbetta Award for Best Practice Outside the U.S.

A second issue involved problems with the stainless steel work, which constituted a significant portion of the project. When it appeared that an Egyptian firm, which had submitted the most competitive bid, was attempting to secure the contract with the approval of I.M. Pei’s office, a detailed investigation was conducted—with the designer’s knowledge and support—into this manufacturer, which had extremely inadequate references. As a result, this critical work package—the stainless steel work—was awarded to a well-known German firm in Europe. Later in the project, the German firm unexpectedly went bankrupt and was forced to abandon the work; the project was only completed by entering into individual contracts with more than 20 subcontractors and suppliers and assuming overall coordination responsibility. Another issue related to stainless steel was the appearance of rust spots resembling tea stains on some of the stainless steel components used in the building over the water over time. All these issues were resolved with great difficulty thanks to the close attention and support of the project designer and, of course, primarily the architect. This project demonstrated that positive results can be achieved if the approach toward project designers during construction is consistently knowledge-based, diligent, and honest.

I served as project manager on this project for a total of 66 months after the Qatar Foundation, as the client, awarded the contract for the concept design prepared by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki using the “Design and Build” method. The first major challenge during the bidding process was obtaining proposals from design teams. After winning the bid, the task was to assemble an effective design team from among the proposals received. Isozaki’s conceptual design had been put out to bid by the client to a British firm to complete the design work; however, the British team’s work was halted during the preliminary design phase because it was deemed that the work was not progressing quickly enough. Ultimately, the contractor reached an agreement with the U.S.-based YAMASAKI architectural firm, which was deemed the most suitable. Yamasaki had served as the architectural designer for the World Trade Center (WTC) building, which was destroyed in the September 11 attacks. However, looking back, it is possible that the firm’s projects undertaken since Yamasaki’s death and the current status of its staff were not examined with sufficient diligence. This oversight created conditions conducive to potential manipulation amid the intense and chaotic atmosphere of the bidding period. During that time, efforts to influence the contractor through various means—such as affecting the commercial aspects of the proposal being prepared or leveraging relationships with the selected project architects—may have been possible. Ultimately, Yamasaki was selected as the project architect, and design work began. For the structural engineering, TTG—a firm with which we had previously collaborated—was selected, while the electrical and mechanical design work was entrusted to a well-known firm in New York. For theater engineering and acoustics, renowned firms based in New York were also included in the team. However, it is important to note the following. We were familiar with TTG, but it was not possible to appoint the team leader we had hoped to have on this project. A vice president appointed by TTG and two experienced engineers were found to be inadequate in the later stages of the project, and we were forced to terminate our relationship with their company. This example demonstrates that, no matter how well-known and experienced a project firm may be, even a single person on the team entrusted with the project can make a significant difference.

As the project continued, issues similar to those with TTG arose with the electrical and mechanical design firm: It came to light that the electrical designs had been subcontracted to a project group in India without informing the contractor—their client. When it became clear that some senior engineers at the company’s New York headquarters were unable to adapt to the project’s pace and specific requirements, Yamasaki terminated the firm’s role in the project. A similar development occurred with the acoustic consulting firm, and their contract was also terminated.

The 7–8-hour time difference between the project designers’ country and the host country—where Friday was the weekend in the host country, while Saturday and Sunday were the weekend in the designers’ country—ultimately reduced the number of days available for joint work to 3.5–4 days per week. Furthermore, despite the teams being from well-known firms, the inadequacy of the personnel they assigned to the project led to serious difficulties. Consequently, in the later stages of the project, it became imperative for the project designers—led by the architect—to relocate to the construction site to maintain the pace required by the work.

One problem encountered at the start of the design phase was the incompatibility of specifications resulting from the preliminary design being prepared according to British standards while the construction drawings were prepared according to U.S. standards. These issues, which were unexpected given that the technical teams spoke the same language, had a negative impact on the progress of the work. The phase of the design process known as DD—short for “Design Development” in one country—was referred to as “Detail Design” in another English-speaking country, and there were also differences in the scope of work under these headings.

All of the issues listed above led to serious coordination problems in the project and prevented it from being completed on time and within budget.

In addition to the experiences summarized above, let us briefly recap the key considerations when working with project designers from foreign countries:

• Registration and licensing issues for foreign project designers must be addressed from the very beginning in accordance with the laws of the host country.

• Attention must be paid to the distance and time difference between the project designer’s home country and the host country. It is preferable and necessary for project designers to be based in the country where the work will be carried out.

• Differences in work and lifestyle cultures across countries must be taken into account. It should be noted that certain terms used in some countries may be considered unacceptable in other contexts.

• Working hours, employee benefits, holidays and festivals, the specifics of the Ramadan month, and restrictions on daily working hours in hot climates must be carefully planned.

• When drafting contracts, the legal and tax obligations of the countries involved must be clearly defined.

• In Design and Build projects, it is recommended that the contractor manage design work not with the project manager overseeing construction, but with a separate design manager.

• It is important for project owners to include the necessary level of detail in their contracts with foreign project designers regarding meeting schedules, travel and accommodation expenses, design progress and approval reporting, design progress measurement, and payment schedules.

• The expectations of the project designers and the scope of work must be very clearly defined.

• It would be a more appropriate approach for foreign project designers to work with a local architectural firm on construction drawings, or for the Employer to divide the work and assign the construction drawings to another firm.

• It is recommended to pay close attention to the contracts that foreign project architects will enter into with project architects and consultants in sub-disciplines, and to ensure that interim and progress payments are carefully defined.

• During the request for proposal phase, the standards and applicable codes to be followed in each discipline must be determined for foreign project architects.