Building Construction

- Applications of Building Construction

In project architecture and civil engineering, construction is the building or assembly of any infrastructure on a site or sites. Although this may not be thought of as a single activity, in fact construction is a feat of multitasking. Normally the job is managed by the construction manager and supervised by the project manager, design engineer or project architect.For the successful execution of a project, effective planning is essential. Those involved with the design and execution of the infrastructure in question must consider the environmental impact of the job, the successful scheduling, budgeting, site safety, availability of materials, logistics, inconvenience to the public caused by construction delays, preparing tender documents, etc.Building construction, Heavy/highway construction,Industrial construction.

Each type of construction project requires a unique team to plan, design, construct, and maintain the project.Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design and construction of the physical and natural built environment, including works such as bridges, roads, canals, dams and buildings.Civil engineering is the oldest engineering discipline after military engineering, and it was defined to distinguish it from military engineering. It is traditionally broken into several subdisciplines including environmental engineering, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, transportation engineering, water resources engineering, materials engineering, coastal engineering, surveying, urban planning, and construction engineering.

Construction Management

Building construction is the process of adding structure to real property. The vast majority of building construction projects are small renovations, such as addition of a room, or renovation of a bathroom. Often, the owner of the property acts as laborer, paymaster, and design team for the entire project. However, all building construction projects include some elements in common design, financial, and legal considerations. Many projects of varying sizes reach undesirable end results, such as structural collapse, cost overruns, and/or litigatios reason, those with experience in the field make detailed plans and maintain careful oversight during the project to ensure a positive outcome.Building construction is procured privately or publicly utilizing various delivery methodologies, including hard bid, negotiated price, traditional, management contracting, construction managementatrisk, design & build and designbuild bridging.Procurement describes the merging of activities undertaken by the client to obtain a building. There are many different methods of construction procurement however the three main types of procurement are Traditional,Design and Build,Management Contracting,

This is the most common method of construction procurement is well established and recognised throughout. Here, the Architect or Building Surveyor usually acts as the project Manager. His or her role will be to administer the contract, prepare the specification, tender the works and manage the works from inception to completion. There are direct contractual links between the client and the main contractor. Any subcontractor will have a direct contractual relationship with the main contractor. There is no direct contract with the client. This means there is only one point of contact on the contractual side and a single point of responsibility.

Design And Build

This is probably the second most common method of construction procurement and one that can include an entire completed package such as fixtures and fittings and equipment where necessary, to produce a completed fully functional building. In some cases, the Design and Build D & B package can also include to find the site, arranging funding and applying for all necessary statutory consents.The client will produce a list of ‘clients requirements’ for a project, for which the D & B contractor will translate into a set of ‘contactors proposals’. The latter will then be altered and adapted until the client is satisfied that the D & B contractor knows exactly what the client wants from his or her completed building.

D & B is usually used for less complicated projects such as office or industrial buildings, although it has been known to have been used successfully on some more complicated projects.The advantages D & B has over some other methods of construction procurement is that it can lead to decreased design and construction costs and a reduction in the overall project time. Projects procured by this method have a better chance of being completed on time and within budget.However disadvantages often include blandness of a design, client’s expectations not being met, and poorer technical ability of the D & B contractor and, in some cases, inflexibility of the design. The client has a direct contractual relationship with the D & B contractor but can also have a direct contractual relationship with the architectural if input is required in this regard as an additional service.

Management Procurement Systems

Here, unlike the other two roles briefly described above, the client plays an active role in the procurement system by entering into separate contracts with the Designer, the Construction Manager and individual work contractors. The client takes on the active roles of managing all these separate contracts, ensuring that they all work smoothly and effectively together. Because the client is involved in key decision making processes he or she must retain complete control over the works at all times. Sometimes a Project Manager is employed to aid the client.Management procurement systems are often used to speed up the procurement processes, allow the client greater flexibility in design variation throughout the contract, the ability to appoint individual work contractors, separate contractual responsibility on each individual throughout the contract and a greater client control.More and more families are looking into building their own homes, or contracting to have them built. Construction practices, technologies, and resources conform to state and local building codes.Heavy/highway construction is the process adding infrastructure to our built environment.

Owners of these projects are usually government agencies, either at the national or local level. As in building construction, heavy/highway construction has design, financial, and legal considerations, however these projects are not usually undertaken forprofit, but to service the public interest. However, heavy/highway construction projects are also undertaken by large private corporations, including, among others, the golf courses, harbors, power companies, railroads, and mines, who undertake the construction of access roads, dams, railroads, general site grading, and massive earthwork projects. As in building construction, the owner will assemble a team to create an overall plan to ensure that the goals of the project are met.

Authority Having Jurisdiction

In construction, the authority having jurisdiction AHJ is the governmental agency or subagency which regulates the construction process. In most cases, this is the municipality in which the building is located. However, construction performed for supramunicipal authorities are usually regulated directly by the owning authority, which becomes the AHJ.During the planning of a building, the zoning and planning boards of the AHJ will review the overall compliance of the proposed building with the municipal General Plan and zoning regulations. Once the proposed building has been approved, detailed civil, architectural, and structural plans must be submitted to the municipal building department and sometimes the public works department to determine compliance with the building code and sometimes for fit with existing infrastructure. Often, the municipal fire department will review the plans for compliance with firesafety ordinances and regulations.

Before the foundation can be dug, contractors are typically required to notify utility companies, either directly or through a company such as Dig Safe to ensure that underground utility lines can be marked. This lessens the likelihood of damage to the existing electrical, water, sewage, phone, and cable facilities, which could cause outages and potentially hazardous situations. During the construction of a building, the municipal building inspector inspects the building periodically to ensure that the construction adheres to the approved plans and the local building code. Once construction is complete and a final inspection has been passed, an occupancy permit may be issued.An operating building must remain in compliance with the fire code. The fire code is enforced by the local fire department.Any changes made to a building including its use, expansion, its structural integrity, and fire protection items, require acceptance by the AHJ. Anything affecting basic safety functions, no matter how small they may appear, may require the owner to apply for a building permit, to ensure proper review of the contemplated changes against the building code.

Construction Industry

There are several routes to the different careers within the construction industry. Craft industries offer jobs where employees train while they work through apprenticeships and other training schemes. Another way, where many construction staff have found success, is through recruitment agencies.Technical occupations in the UK require GCSE qualifications or vocational equivalents, either initially or through on the job apprenticeship training. One example is that of Quantity Surveying. Quantity Surveyors are effectively cost managers within the construction industry and may be 1 employed by Chartered Surveyor practices referred to often as PQS derived from the term Private Quantity Surveyor who normally represent the client's interest and liaise with the Architect on the client's team, preparing cost plans, preparing tender documentation, giving cost advice on variations, preparing monthly valuation payments to the contractor, agreeing the final account with the contractor, generally looking after the client's interests although the role can be referred to within some standard forms of contract as being a neutral role to value 'the' costs of the project, in practice it tends to be looking after the client's interests primarily or 2 employed by Main Contractors, in which role they manage the contractor's costs, place subcontract orders, make payments to subcontractors, claim monthly valuations from the client's surveyor Private QS or PQS, cost manage variations, prepare internal cost reports to senior management and directors, generally managing the project commercially and protect the contractor's interests contractually.

Quantity Surveyor

Gene expression values from microarray experiments can be represented as heat maps to visualize the result of data analysis.Due to the biological complexity of gene expression, the considerations of experimental design that are discussed in the expression profiling article are of critical importance if statistically and biologically valid conclusions are to be drawn from the data.There are three main elements to consider when designing a microarray experiment. First, replication of the biological samples is essential for drawing conclusions from the experiment. Second, technical replicates two RNA samples obtained from each experimental unit help to ensure precision and allow for testing differences within treatment groups. The technical replicates may be two independent RNA extractions or two aliquots of the same extraction. Third, spots of each cDNA clone or oligonucleotide are present at least as duplicates on the microarray slide, to provide a measure of technical precision in each hybridization.

It is critical that information about the sample preparation and handling is discussed in order to help identify the independent units in the experiment as well as to avoid inflated estimates of significance.Bioinformatics and computational biology involve the use of techniques including applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, chemistry, and biochemistry to solve biological problems usually on the molecular level. Research in computational biology often overlaps with systems biology. Major research efforts in the field include sequence alignment, gene finding, genome assembly, protein structure alignment, protein structure prediction, prediction of gene expression and proteinprotein interactions, and the modeling of evolution.

Cost Consultant Practices

Quantity Surveying offers a great diversity of roles and in career path, working on a variety of projects and within different areas and facets of the construction industry. The qualification of Chartered Quantity Surveyor has been superseded as the RICS rules have replaced this with simply Chartered Surveyor except those existing Chartered QS's who registered to keep the Chartered QS title by a date now passed, and Chartered Quantity Surveyor practices have now largely adopted the title of Construction Cost Consultants and having the right to call themselves simply Chartered Surveyors though still often referred to in the UK construction industry as PQS's. It is also possible for Construction Cost Consultant practices to be occasionally employed by local authorities, contractors or subcontractors, on a particular construction project although not if they are already employed as surveyors for the same construction project.

As well as the role of Quantity Surveyor, other professions within the UK construction industry are for example Architect, Engineer, Project Manager, Planner, Safety Officer. These roles may be in 'Building' buildings such as Offices, Shopping Centres, Housing or 'Civil Engineering' structures such as Bridges, Dams, Motorways/Roads/Highways, Harbours/Ferry Terminals. While projects such as construction of new Power Stations or Naval Bases may comprise a combination of both 'building' and 'civil engineering'.Graduate roles in the construction industry are filled by people with at least a foundation degree in subjects such as civil engineering, building and construction management. Graduates often receive specialised positions and gain qualifications such as chartered status.cleus, the atom becomes an atom of a different chemical element.

Industrial Construction

Industrial construction, though a relatively small part of the entire construction industry, is a very important component. Owners of these projects are usually large, forprofit, industrial corporations. These corporations can be found in such industries as medicine, petroleum, chemical, power generation, manufacturing, etc. Processes in these industries require highly specialized expertise in planning, design, and construction. As in building and heavy/highway construction, this type of construction requires a team of individuals to ensure a successful project.

In the modern industrialized world, construction usually involves the translation of paper or computer based designs into reality. A formal design team may be assembled to plan the physical proceedings, and to integrate those proceedings with the other parts. The design usually consists of drawings and specifications, usually prepared by a design team including architects, interior designers, surveyors, civil engineers, cost engineers or quantity surveyors, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, structural engineers, and fire protection engineers.The design team is most commonly employed by i.e. in contract with the property owner. Under this system, once the design is completed by the design team, a number of construction companies or construction management companies may then be asked to make a bid for the work, either based directly on the design, or on the basis of drawings and a bill of quantities provided by a quantity surveyor. Following evaluation of bids, the owner will typically award a contract to the lowest responsible bidder.

Construction Projects

The modern trend in design is toward integration of previously separated specialties, especially among large firms. In the past, architects, interior designers, engineers, developers, construction managers, and general contractors were more likely to be entirely separate companies, even in the larger firms. Presently, a firm that is nominally an architecture or construction management firm may have experts from all related fields as employees, or to have an associated company that provides each necessary skill. Thus, each such firm may offer itself as onestop shopping for a construction project, from beginning to end. This is designated as a design Build contract where the contractor is given a performance specification, and must undertake the project from design to construction, while adhering to the performance specifications.

Several project structures can assist the owner in this integration, including designbuild, partnering, and construction management. In general, each of these project structures allows the owner to integrate the services of architects, interior designers, engineers, and constructors throughout design and construction. In response, many companies are growing beyond traditional offerings of design or construction services alone, and are placing more emphasis on establishing relationships with other necessary participants through the designbuild process.The increasing complexity of construction projects creates the need for design professionals trained in all phases of the project's lifecycle and develop an appreciation of the building as an advanced technological system requiring close integration of many subsystems and their individual components, including sustainability. Building engineering is an emerging discipline that attempts to meet this new challenge.

Financial Planning

Many construction projects suffer from preventable financial problems. Underbids ask for too little money to complete the project. Cash flow problems exist when the present amount of funding cannot cover the current costs for labor and materials, and because they are a matter of having sufficient funds at a specific time, can arise even when the overall total is enough. Fraud is a problem in many fields, but is notoriously prevalent in the construction field. Financial planning for the project is intended to ensure that a solid plan, with adequate safeguards and contingency plans, is in place before the project is started, and is required to ensure that the plan is properly executed over the life of the project.Mortgage bankers, accountants, and cost engineers are likely participants in creating an overall plan for the financial management of the building construction project.

The presence of the mortgage banker is highly likely even in relatively small projects, since the owner's equity in the property is the most obvious source of funding for a building project. Accountants act to study the expected monetary flow over the life of the project, and to monitor the payouts throughout the process. Cost engineers apply expertise to relate the work and materials involved to a proper valuation. Cost overruns with government projects have occurred when the contractor was able to identify change orders or changes in the project resulting in large increases in cost, which are not subject to competition by other firm as they have already been eliminated from consideration after the initial bid.Large projects can involve highly complex financial plans. As portions of a project are completed, they may be sold, supplanting one lender or owner for another, while the logistical requirements of having the right trades and materials available for each stage of the building construction project carries forward. In many English speaking countries, but not the United States, projects typically use quantity surveyors.

Legal Considerations

This article does not cite any references or sources. October 2006 Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.A construction project must fit into the legal framework governing the property. These include governmental regulations on the use of property, and obligations that are created in the process of construction.The project must adhere to zoning and building code requirements. Constructing a project that fails to adhere to codes will not benefit the owner. Some legal requirements come from malum in se considerations, or the desire to prevent things that are indisputably bad bridge collapses or explosions. Other legal requirements come from malum prohibitum considerations, or things that are a matter of custom or expectation, such as isolating businesses to a business district and residences to a residential district.

An attorney may seek changes or exemptions in the law governing the land where the building will be built, either by arguing that a rule is inapplicable the bridge design won't collapse, or that the custom is no longer needed acceptance of livework spaces has grown in the community.A construction project is a complex net of contracts and other legal obligations, each of which must be carefully considered. A contract is the exchange of a set of obligations between two or more parties, but it is not so simple a matter as trying to get the other side to agree to as much as possible in exchange for as little as possible. The time element in construction means that a delay costs money, and in cases of bottlenecks, the delay can be extremely expensive. Thus, the contracts must be designed to ensure that each side is capable of performing the obligations set out. Contracts that set out clear expectations and clear paths to accomplishing those expectations are far more likely to result in the project flowing smoothly, whereas poorly drafted contracts lead to confusion and collapse.

Interaction Of Expertise

Design, finance, and legal aspects overlap and interrelate. The design must be not only structurally sound and appropriate for the use and location, but must also be financially possible to build, and legal to use. The financial structure must accommodate the need for building the design provided, and must pay amounts that are legally owed. Legal advisors in the beginning of a construction project seek to identify ambiguities and other potential sources of trouble in the contract structure, and to present options for preventing problems. Throughout the process of the project, they work to avoid and resolve conflicts that arise. In each case, the lawyer facilitates an exchange of obligations that matches the reality of the project.The legal structure must integrate the design into the surrounding legal framework, and enforces the financial consequences of the construction process.The first buildings were huts and shelters, constructed by hand or with simple tools. As cities grew during the bronze age, a class of professional craftsmen like bricklayers and carpenters appeared. Occasionally, slaves were used for construction work. In the middle ages, these were organized into guilds. In the 19th century, steampowered machinery appeared, and later diesel and electric powered vehicles such as cranes, excavators and

bulldozers.The industrial revolution was manifested in new kinds of transportation installations, such as railways, canals and macadam roads. These required large amounts of investment. New construction devices included steam engines, machine tools, explosives and optical surveying.As steel was massproduced from the mid19th century, it was used, in form of Ibeams and reinforced concrete. Glass panes also went into mass production, and changed from luxury to every man's property.With the second industrial revolution in the early 20th century, elevators and cranes made high rise buildings and skyscrapers possible, while engineering vehicles and power tools decreased the workforce needed. Other new technologies were prefabrication and computeraided design.Trade unions were formed to protect construction workers' interest. Personal protective equipment such as hard hats and earmuffs also came into use.