Product category:
Building Industry QA and Benchmarks
News Release from: Benfield ATT | Subject: Constructing Excellence Wales conference
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial
Team on 07 April 2006
Careless architects must bear cost of
mistakes
Architects, surveyors, engineers and other professional consultants must be made to bear costs related to errors in their designs says Professor Michael Benfield.
"Architects, surveyors, engineers and other professional consultants must be made to bear costs related to errors in their designs" Professor Michael Benfield told a Constructing Excellence Wales audience last week Following Minister Carwyn Jones AM's key note address, Dr Benfield, who is visiting Professor of Civil and Construction Engineering research with the University of Wales Newport, illustrated his paper "Designing Out Waste" with examples of where poor professional input from Architects in construction projects has delayed projects, caused anger and frustration, and led to large cost increases
This article was originally published on Buildingtalk on 9 Sep 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Benfield ATT Lifestyle Log Cabins
More than one in five (22%) Brits in the UK use their garden buildings as a refuge from their other halves and one tenth transform their shed into an office, a new report reports.
Construction Industry Training Committee
The UK Timber Frame Association (UKTFA) has unveiled its prestigious Construction Industry Training Committee headed by timber construction expert, Dr Michael Benfield.
Prof Benfield, who runs Benfield ATT - a UK timber frame engineering firm based in South Wales - predicted that current pressures for more housing and other construction would increase demand for Off-Site Production and MMC (Modern Methods of Construction).
"This will lead to the development of new standards of professional capability and of project design and management tools." he said.
Showing how it took a decade to move from pen and ink drafting of construction 'blueprints' to Computer Aided Design (CAD), he explained that the move from 2 dimensional to 3 dimensional design was now well underway and that, despite 'teething difficulties', the huge benefits that can be achieved from 'designing in the round' will now rapidly become a reality.
"However, this will require new skills, new competencies, and an improved attitude to design responsibility." He said.
** "Clients and their professional advisors and consultants must understand that producing a building Off-Site requires all elements to be determined in detail before work commences, rather than muddling-through trying to resolve complicated design issues as a project progresses".
"While this is possible using 'wet' trade building techniques where adjustments can be made in-situ, complex off-site manufactured elements are much more difficult to alter".
"Failure to understand this is both jeopardising MMC and costing clients and contractors small fortunes to correct".
"Partnering for the whole design, supply and construction chain is a vital process that must be developed to correct this.".
• Benfield ATT: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Buildingtalk email newsletter
• Buildingtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
