Successful rooftop amenities begin with a clear alignment of goals and success metrics. Then, you need a deep understanding of strategy to drive creative big ideas. Each of these objectives are accomplished during the early stages of our proven process, The Immersive Experience Method.

But even the greatest ideas won’t make a difference without expert execution. That’s why having the right process for execution is key to making your rooftop amenity project the best it can be. At Loft Six Four we refer to this step as Follow Through.

Rooftop Amenity Follow-Through

In golf, a good follow-through helps you hit the ball with the maximum force and control at the point of impact. This is critical in making sure you actually drive the ball toward your target. Your hands, arms, legs and hips should all come through your shot together. If you don’t follow all the way through, you’ll likely end up swinging behind the ball.

In a similar sense, you need a good follow-through with your real estate development projects in order to maximize your return on investment and have the most control over the impact your property will have. Without it, you run the risk of missing the target (i.e. your metrics for success established at the beginning of the project). Your design and construction teams need to come through this process together so you don’t find your project behind the ball when it comes to market.

The Follow Through stage of our process includes further development of design ideas, efficient technical documentation, and facilitating smooth bidding and permitting processes. 

How to Follow Through with Design Development

Design Development is the process by which you further nail down the specifics of your design. It’s when big ideas meet real life constraints — where your golf swing meets the ball. For your project to have any impact from your Follow Through, you need to make certain key decisions right away. 

If you neglect or rush through design development, you run the risk of moving forward without alignment between the development team and the design team. Without clear direction and buy-in, designers will wind up spending time developing ideas that aren’t in line with the vision. And that will mean you end up with design expectations that aren’t in line with reality. It’s a recipe for failure, disappointment, and wasted time and money.

To avoid these negative consequences, you’ll need clarity on budget numbers, material selections, approved layouts, and priorities. To this end, we do the following as part of Follow Through:

1. Provide a general layout of the space in the form of a base drawing file that we’ll distribute to the other design consultants for coordination. 
2. Coordinate the material selections with the architect, interior designer, and community brand designer.
3. Create a plant palette in line with the project goals and theme.
4. Show design intent for custom-built elements.
5. Make selections for furnishings and coordinate with procurers.
6. Make selections for outdoor light fixtures and coordinate with electrical consultants.
7. Make selections for pool and spa materials and layout and coordinate with a water engineer.
8. Other material selections and coordination items as applicable.

Once the design has been developed and approved, the technical documentation will proceed much more efficiently.

Efficient Technical Documentation of Rooftop Amenity Design

Having completed design development, we can move forward with frictionless technical documentation. The design team can focus on ensuring quality of the drawings and communicating design intent, rather than being burdened with a cascade of design decisions. Again, by making all of the main design decisions before drafting a full plan set, we save everyone time. We don’t allow time to be wasted chasing design changes throughout the growing number of drawing sheets.

Furthermore, when documentation begins before design development is complete, there’s less time available for solving construction detail problems or even performing basic quality control. All of this comes at a cost. RFI’s build up and big ideas get sidelined because they weren’t solved from a technical perspective. 

Because of the emphasis on design development during Follow Through we are able to provide more value in documentation with ample sheets for maximum clarity. The more we can figure out in the drawings, the less difficulty they’ll have in the field, so it’s worth getting things right at this stage. 

Bidding and Permitting Rooftop Amenities

With a detailed set of plans, you’ll be able to confidently move into bidding and permitting your rooftop amenities. This process goes much more smoothly when you have a clear design direction that is supported by the drawings and specifications. Invariably, some modifications to the plans must be made at this stage, but because of the work done in design development and documentation we will keep them to a minimum.

The aim of our drawings is to provide enough information that a group of contractors can accurately bid from them. From special exhibits like our customized 3D details, contractors get a clear vision of the end product. And we have a visual record of what you approved in design development. This makes answering bid questions and fielding value engineering requests much easier because it’s clear what the end result must be (and what can or cannot be compromised). 

Similarly, our drawings give city officials the necessary information they need to approve the project. In urban municipalities where we do the majority of our work the permitting process can be extensive. But since we specialize in rooftop amenities, we are more able to stay current on code requirements. Thus, we are able to preemptively address concerns with specific notes and calculations that limit the number of comments we receive in the first place. Then, we do everything in our power to resolve the comments during the first round and keep your project moving toward construction. 

What You’ll Get from the Follow Through

To begin this phase, we’ll gather everything we’ve selected for your project and deliver you The Materials Package. This package is a visual representation of all of the relevant design decisions made in the form of specific selections we’ll plan on specifying in the documentation. Consider it your final checkpoint for the design.

With a fully developed design, a set of detailed construction documents, a construction contract and permit in hand, you’ll be ready to see your vision come to life during construction.

Let’s talk about how we can work together on your next project.