Responsibility for AV system design in a building project typically falls to a vendor-neutral technology design consultant engaged during the design phase – not to the AV integrator, the MEP engineer, or the architect of record.
The technology consultant produces AV design documents that enable competitive bidding and ensure that AV requirements are coordinated with architectural, structural, and MEP systems before construction begins. Read on to explore the roles involved in AV system design, what goes wrong when responsibility is unclear, and when to assign it.
What Are the Roles Involved in AV on a Building Project?
Several parties touch AV systems over the course of a building project. Understanding who does what, and at what phase, is the foundation for structuring the project team correctly and avoiding the scope gaps that generate change orders.
- Technology Design Consultant: This is the design-side professional responsible for the AV program, system specs, and coordination drawings. They should be vendor-neutral and provide specifications describing performance requirements that multiple qualified contractors can meet, rather than products from a single manufacturer.
- AV Integrator: An AV integrator is the construction-phase contractor who procures, installs, programs, and commissions the systems specified in the design documents.
- MEP Engineer: This person coordinates the power, conduit rough-ins, and mechanical requirements that support AV systems, but doesn’t design the AV systems themselves.
- Architect of Record: The architect oversees the overall design and is responsible for ensuring that technology requirements are reflected in the project's construction documents.
On projects without a dedicated technology consultant, the architect is often left to manage the AV scope without the expertise to define it clearly – a common source of coordination gaps.
What Happens When Responsibility Isn't Clearly Assigned?
The most common problem in AV project delivery isn't a failure of any individual party – it's an unclear assignment of responsibility during design. Understanding these failure modes helps architects and project managers avoid them.
When there isn’t a technology consultant is engaged, the AV scope tends to fall through the cracks. Nobody designs it, and the project goes to bid without complete AV construction documents. Contractors bidding without a complete AV design will typically either exclude the scope and wait for clarification or include allowances and assumptions that don't align with the owner's requirements. Either path leads to change orders, scope disputes, or a delivered system that doesn't perform as expected.
Bringing an AV integrator to write their own scope addresses the documentation gap but creates a different problem: the integrator's spec reflects what they sell. That limits competitive bidding on the work and can produce systems optimized for the integrator's product lines instead of the owner's actual needs.
When Should We Establish AV Design Responsibility?
You should establish AV design responsibility at the beginning of schematic design, when the project team is being assembled, and the scope of design services is being negotiated.
For projects with modest AV requirements, such as a handful of conference rooms or basic building-wide audio, an owner may choose to address AV through a design-build integrator contract. But on projects with complex or extensive AV requirements – large meeting facilities, auditoriums, multi-building campuses, venues – the design-side technology consultant role is worth the investment.
Resolving AV design responsibility early means the rest of the design team knows what to coordinate with. Getting those answers during design is far less expensive than getting them during construction. Contact TMC today to learn how our experts approach AV system design for architectural projects.
