A construction co-location room works when it changes how the team makes decisions, not merely where people sit. Put the owner, designers, contractor and trade partners—including the people doing the actual work—in a shared, flexible, unbranded workspace; align them through a project-execution-planning (PEP) kickoff; define governance and information flows; and make project health visible. Without those conditions, a team can occupy one room for 12 to 18 months and still operate as disconnected silos.
The eight practices below come from practitioners quoted by Building Design + Construction on September 15, 2016. They cover the people, room, rules and trust required to make a construction “big room” useful.
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What co-location means on a construction project
Co-location is a shared project workspace—often called a big room, hub or central operations area—where the participants responsible for design and construction work together. The physical room is only the enabling condition. The real objective is alignment: people should be able to surface a risk, bring the right disciplines together, decide what to do and see whether the project is improving.
That distinction matters because proximity does not automatically produce collaboration. The source describes teams being placed together for 12–18 months, yet emphasizes that duration alone is not a success measure. A co-location plan also needs trust, shared scope, accountable participants, practical space and agreed governance.
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Eight practices for a high-performing co-location room
1. Start with a project-execution-planning (PEP) rally
Open the project with a structured PEP session involving the key stakeholders. The purpose is to create camaraderie, align objectives and expose risks before they become isolated discipline problems.
On larger projects, John Tocci of Tocci Building Cos. describes a day-and-a-half format. Senior management meets for a half day, followed by the full team. That larger session can involve upwards of 60 people. The group confirms the objectives, identifies pitfalls and builds a roadmap for executing the work.
“The whole team, within a few days, tears the project apart,” Tocci says. He adds that people start “bearing their professional souls about what it is they’re concerned about when coming on board.”
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Use the kickoff to make concerns discussable while the team can still act on them. Record the agreed objectives, known risks, decision paths and near-term roadmap in a form that remains visible in the room. A kickoff that produces only presentations and no shared working commitments will not create the alignment the room needs.
2. Put the doers in the room
Attendance must include the professionals performing the work, not only executives, project managers or team leaders. The people who detail, coordinate, model, estimate, schedule and resolve field issues need direct access to the other disciplines.
The source recounts a healthcare co-location in which firms sent team leaders while the staff doing the work stayed at their home offices. The result was predictable: work remained undone and the staff became frustrated when they saw that other parties were not sending their working personnel.
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“This was difficult for our staff when they realized that the other parties weren’t sending those doing the work and, therefore, work was not getting done,” says Cathleen Lange, AIA, LEED AP, a principal with Shepley Bulfinch.
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Write attendance expectations into the project agreement. Define which roles must be present, when substitutes are acceptable and how time away from a home office is handled. A room full of representatives who cannot complete the next task simply recreates the handoffs co-location is meant to remove.
3. Design an open, flexible work area
Use a large open area that can be reconfigured as the work changes. Teams need room to sit together, display information and gather around a problem without waiting for a formal meeting.
Provide physical surfaces for collaborative work:
- Whiteboards for sketches, decisions and rapid problem-solving.
- Tack-up boards for drawings, schedules and pull-planning materials.
- Blank wall space for Lean exercises and other visual planning.
- Clean bathrooms that make extended occupancy practical.
- Phone booths or equivalent private spaces for confidential calls.
Flexibility is more valuable than a fixed furniture plan. The room should support a quick stand-up discussion, a longer planning session and a temporary work cluster without forcing the team to leave the shared environment.
4. Provide different meeting and breakout spaces
One open room cannot serve every collaboration mode. Include meeting rooms in several sizes and smaller breakout areas so a subset of the team can work through a specific issue without disrupting everyone else.
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“People need spaces so that when a problem arises, a team can go off into an area and start whiteboarding to see what to do with it,” Tocci says.
Plan for both planned and spontaneous use. A large room can host a full-team review; a medium room can support a coordination group; a small booth or enclosed room can handle a private call. The exact room count depends on project size, but the principle is constant: the team needs somewhere to focus without abandoning the co-location environment.
5. Set the groundwork before anyone moves in
Co-location creates shared costs and shared obligations. Set the commercial, operational and information rules before the room opens. At minimum, document the decisions in this table.
| Decision area | What the project must define | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Space and equipment | Who pays for the room, furniture, whiteboards, tack-up boards, phone booths and other equipment. | Prevents disputes over ownership and missing resources. |
| Technology | Who pays for and maintains the technology used for shared digital work and displays. | Ensures the room can access current information rather than becoming a paper-only island. |
| Attendance | Which roles must attend, the expected duration and how absences or substitutions are handled. | Keeps the people who can perform the work available to the team. |
| Compensation and home offices | How time away from a participant’s home office is compensated or accounted for. | Removes a common reason for keeping working staff elsewhere. |
| Digital information transfer | How drawings, models, schedules, decisions and other project information move into and out of the room. | Maintains one dependable flow of current information. |
| Responsibilities and governance | Who can decide, who records decisions, how issues are escalated and how compliance is checked. | Turns collaboration into accountable project management. |
These arrangements are not administrative details to settle after occupancy. They determine whether people can participate fully and whether the information in the room can be trusted.
6. Remove visible company branding
Strip visible company branding from the shared space. Logos, branded zones and company-specific “camps” can reinforce organizational identities when the project needs a single team.
“The most successful co-location ventures we’ve had have been completely unbranded, where you don’t see campfires or tribes within the facility,” Tocci says. “That defeats the whole purpose. The goal is total integration, silo-less stationing.”
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Unbranded does not mean that responsibilities disappear. Keep role and contact information clear, but present it as project information rather than a territorial map. Seat people and display work in ways that encourage cross-discipline interaction instead of grouping everyone by employer.
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7. Use “trade partner” language
Words shape expectations. The source recommends replacing “subcontractor” or “sub” with “trade partner” in the co-location environment. The change signals that specialty firms share responsibility for the outcome rather than occupying a lower tier in a hierarchy.
“‘Subs’ don’t exist in co-location ventures,” Tocci says, describing trade partners as “true partners in the process.”
Language alone will not fix a contractual or behavioral problem, but consistent terminology supports the integrated operating model. Use the same partnership language in meeting agendas, issue logs, visual boards and daily conversations, while keeping contractual duties precise.
8. Build trust and make performance visible
The final practice combines two requirements: a deliberate approach to trust and an immediate view of project health. Trust must extend across the owner, design team, contractor and trade partners. If one person remains openly skeptical, collaboration can collapse.
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“Establishing trust among all parties in the co-location room is essential,” Lange says. “All it takes is one skeptical person to bring the whole room down.”
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The source recommends The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable as a way to discuss the behaviors that break down teamwork and accountability. Treat it as a discussion aid, not a substitute for project agreements or leadership action.
Make the project’s condition visible with large-screen monitors or simple signs showing the measures the team has agreed to track. Examples named by the practitioners include:
- Cash burn.
- Budget performance.
- Key performance indicators.
- Schedule status shown with traffic-light indicators.
- Budget status shown with traffic-light indicators.
Use current, understandable information and explain the definitions behind each indicator. Visibility should help the team act, not create a wall of unexplained numbers.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.“Someone can walk in, look around the room, and within a few minutes they’ll have a sense of the health and vitality of the project,” Tocci says.
How to judge whether a co-location setup is ready
Before opening the room, test the plan against the implementation choices that most affect performance. A setup is stronger when it answers these questions clearly.
| Evaluation axis | Questions to ask |
|---|---|
| Stakeholder coverage | Are the owner, designers, contractor and trade partners represented, and are the actual doers present? |
| Room flexibility | Can furniture and wall space support open work, pull planning, private calls and rapid reconfiguration? |
| Breakout capacity | Can a small group whiteboard a problem without taking over the whole room? |
| Governance clarity | Are costs, attendance, compensation, digital transfer, responsibilities and escalation rules written down? |
| Silo reduction | Is the space unbranded and arranged to prevent employer-based camps? |
| Trust practices | How will the team address skepticism, surface concerns and hold one another accountable? |
| Performance visibility | Can a visitor quickly understand cash, budget, KPI and schedule status from the displayed information? |
| Total burden | Has the project considered the cost of space, equipment, technology and time away from home offices? |
A practical sequence for launching the big room
- Agree on the purpose. State that the room exists for integrated design and construction decisions, risk discovery and accountable delivery—not simply shared seating.
- Identify the participants. List every discipline and the working professionals who must be available, not only senior representatives.
- Run the PEP rally. Use the kickoff to confirm objectives, identify pitfalls and create the project roadmap. On a large project, plan for the day-and-a-half format described by Tocci.
- Approve the room plan. Check open work areas, wall surfaces, whiteboards, tack-up boards, phone booths, meeting rooms, breakout areas and basic facilities.
- Write the operating rules. Resolve payment, technology, attendance, compensation, information transfer, responsibilities and governance before occupancy.
- Remove territorial signals. Eliminate visible company branding and organize the room around project work.
- Set the shared vocabulary. Use “trade partner” consistently while preserving precise contractual responsibilities.
- Publish the health view. Put agreed cash, budget, KPI and schedule indicators where the whole team can see and discuss them.
What the evidence does—and does not—show
The practitioner guidance supports an operating model for co-location, illustrated by a healthcare example and by Tocci’s larger-project PEP format. It does not provide an independent percentage improvement, controlled-study result or verified cost-savings figure. Treat the eight practices as implementation guidance, then measure your own project’s decisions, unresolved issues, schedule and budget performance against the indicators your team adopts.
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