School Construction Photo

School Construction Photo
A job site photo of a school under construction

A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION

A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION ABOUT THE CONTENT ON THIS SITE:
The content provided on this site and in the Posts is intended to be thought-provoking, educational, and - in some cases - entertaining. It is not intended as direction or recommendations for the design or construction of any specific building project. The information is provided in good faith but without assurance as to its completeness, accuracy, or suitability for any particular purpose. If you are considering using information provided on this site, you are responsible for verifying its appropriateness to your needs, and you assume all risk for its use.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Value Engineering can add value

Architects and engineers may be used to thinking of Value Engineering as a form of design torture, where value is stripped out of a project design in order to save money. But Value Engineering can also provide an opportunity to consider values that may enhance the performance of a building over time. It is a good time to consider or revisit questions of maintainability, access for maintenance, and flexibility for changing uses over time. One use change that is common but rarely considered is the conversion of non-storage spaces to storage use; this is often done informally by building users and without consideration for the capacity of the floor or other supporting structure that is being loaded. In some cases the structural capacity of a floor can be increased by including additional floor joists and reducing the spacing between them, and the initial additional cost may be minimal for a substantial gain in flexibility. (Storage uses may also bring other requirements that should be considered in making the decision.)

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