AIA Releases Six Design-Build Forms as Part of Contract Docs Expansion

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) launched nine new contract documents. These include a new owner/consultant agreement with two accompanying scope of service exhibits for land surveying and geotechnical engineering, as well as six new administrative forms for use on design-build projects.

“We are constantly collaborating with industry stakeholders and practitioners to identify growing contract needs,” says Kenneth Cobleigh, managing director and counsel, AIA Contract Documents. “Our customers expressed a need for a standard form of agreement owners could use to engage necessary consultants and leverage their expertise; the new C103 document addresses that need these additions also cap off our design-build family of documents, which are preferred by the industry at large for commercial design-build projects.”

The C103–2015, Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Consultant without a Predefined Scope of Consultant’s Services establishes expectations between an owner and consultant on a project. This agreement contains basic business terms related to copyrights and licenses, claims and disputes, termination or suspension, and compensation.

The accompanying scope of services exhibits include:

• C201-2015, Standard Form of Consultant’s Services: Land Survey: This exhibit establishes the duties and responsibilities of a surveyor who is hired as a consultant by a property owner, and allows the parties to select between a boundary, topographic, or ALTA/ACSM survey.
• C202-2015, Standard Form of Consultant’s Services: Geotechnical Engineering Services: This exhibit establishes the duties and responsibilities of a geotechnical engineer who is hired as a consultant by a property owner. It separates the geotechnical engineer’s services into four phases: explorations and testing, preparation of a geotechnical report, design services, and construction services.

Both documents are scope of services exhibits intended to be attached to AIA Document C103-2015. They may not be used as stand-alone agreements. The AIA worked with land surveying and geotechnical engineering experts to define the parameters of these documents.

“We were pleased that the AIA sought our input on technical content during the development of C201-2015, Standard Form of Consultant’s Services: Land Survey,” says Curt Sumner, LS, executive director of the National Society of Professional Surveyors. “We believe this document is an important addition to the AIA library of contract documents.”

The AIA has also added six new design-build forms to complete the Design-Build family of documents, which has quickly become one of the most popular document families in the AIA portfolio. The six new documents include:

• G741-2015, Change Order for a Design-Build Project
• G742C-2015, Application and Certificate for Payment for a Design-Build Project, Contractor Variation
• G742S-2015, Application and Certificate for Payment for a Design-Build Project, Subcontractor Variation
• G743C-2015, Continuation Sheet for a Design-Build Project, Contractor Variation
• G743S-2015, Continuation Sheet for a Design-Build Project, Subcontractor Variation
• G745-2015, Change Directive for a Design-Build Project

The new documents are currently available through the latest version of the AIA Contract Documents desktop software, as well as individually through AIA Documents-on-Demand and AIA Documents-on-Demand Plus.