UDR Inc. is building 366 new apartments in the second phase of Vitruvian West across the street from my townhome. I have been squeezing into the solitary lane of traffic due to the construction for several months now. Signs advertise that the construction will be finished this summer. I can only hope.
I have heard that there are not four, but five seasons in most major cities — spring, summer, winter, fall and construction. And when you live in a city with a warm climate, construction season is year-round. Most veteran city drivers tolerate construction in a certain location because they know it is temporary — no matter how long it takes.
According to Wikipedia, construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems or organizations, and comes from Latin “constructio” (from com- "together" and struere "to pile up") and Old French construction. To construct is the verb: the act of building, and the noun is construction: how something is built, the nature of its structure.
In its most widely used context, construction covers the processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure and industrial facilities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing and design, and continues until the asset is built and ready for use; construction also covers repairs and maintenance work, any works to expand, extend and improve the asset, and its eventual demolition, dismantling or decommissioning.
As an industry sector, construction accounts for more than 10% of global gross domestic product or GDP (6-9% in developed countries) and employs around 7% of the global workforce — over 273 million people. The output of the global construction industry was worth an estimated $10.8 trillion in 2017.
History
The first huts and shelters were 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, the artisan craftsmen were organized into guilds. In the 19th century, steam-powered machinery appeared, and, later, diesel- and electric-powered vehicles such as cranes, excavators and bulldozers.
Fast-track construction has been increasingly popular in the 21st century. It is construction industry jargon for a project delivery strategy to start construction before the design is complete. The purpose is to shorten the time to completion. Some estimates suggest that 40% of construction projects are now fast-track construction.
Safety
Construction is one of the most dangerous occupations in the world, incurring more occupational fatalities than any other sector in both the United States and in the European Union. In 2009, the fatal occupational injury rate among construction workers in the United States was nearly three times that for all workers, with falls being one of the most common causes of fatal and non-fatal injuries among construction workers. Proper safety equipment such as harnesses, hard hats and guardrails and procedures such as securing ladders and inspecting scaffolding can curtail the risk of occupational injuries in the construction industry. Other major causes of fatalities in the construction industry include electrocution, transportation accidents and trench cave-ins.
Other safety risks for workers in construction include hearing loss due to high noise exposure, musculoskeletal injury, chemical exposure and high levels of stress. Besides that, the high turnover of workers in the construction industry imposes a huge challenge of accomplishing the restructuring of work practices in individual workplaces or with individual workers. Construction has been identified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health as a priority industry sector in the National Occupational Research Agenda to identify and provide intervention strategies regarding occupational health and safety issues.
Construction industry sectors
In general, there are three sectors of construction: buildings, infrastructure and industrial. Building construction is usually further divided into residential and nonresidential. Infrastructure — also called heavy civil or heavy engineering — includes large public works, dams, bridges, highways, railways, water or wastewater and utility distribution. Industrial construction includes offshore construction —mainly of energy installations, mining and quarrying, refineries, chemical processing, power generation, mills and manufacturing plants.
There are also other ways to break the industry into sectors or markets. For example, Engineering News-Record — a U.S.-based construction trade magazine — has compiled and reported data about the size of design and construction contractors. In 2014, it split the data into nine market segments: transportation, petroleum, buildings, power, industrial, water, manufacturing, sewer/waste, telecom and hazardous waste, along with a tenth category for other projects. ENR used data on transportation, sewer, hazardous waste and water to rank firms as heavy contractors.
Careers
Large-scale construction requires collaboration across multiple disciplines. A project manager normally manages the budget on the job, and a construction manager, design engineer, construction engineer or architect supervises it. Those involved with the design and execution must consider zoning requirements and legal issues, environmental impact of the project, scheduling, budgeting and bidding, construction site safety, availability and transportation of building materials, logistics and inconvenience to the public, including those caused by construction delays.
There are many routes to the different careers within the construction industry. There are three main tiers based on educational background and training, which vary by country.
Unskilled and semi-skilled workers
Unskilled and semi-skilled workers provide general site labor, often have few or no construction qualifications and may receive basic site training.
Skilled tradespeople
Skilled tradespeople have typically served apprenticeships — sometimes in labor unions — or received technical training; this group also includes onsite managers who possess extensive knowledge and experience in their crafts or professions. Skilled manual occupations include carpenters, electricians, plumbers, ironworkers, heavy equipment operators and masons, as well as those involved in project management. In the UK these require further education qualifications, often in vocational subject areas, undertaken either directly after completing compulsory education or through "on the job" apprenticeships.
Professional, technical or managerial personnel
Professional, technical and managerial personnel often have higher education qualifications, usually graduate degrees and are trained to design and manage construction processes. These roles require more training, as they demand greater technical knowledge and involve more legal responsibility. Example roles — and qualification routes — include:
· Architect – Will usually have studied architecture to degree level, and then undertaken further study and gained professional experience. In many countries, the title of "architect" is protected by law, strictly limiting its use to qualified people.
· Civil engineer – Typically holds a degree in a related subject and may only be eligible for membership of a professional institution — such as the UK's Institution of Civil Engineers — following completion of additional training and experience. A new university graduate must hold a master’s degree to become chartered; persons with bachelor’s degrees may become incorporated engineers or engineering technologists.
· Building services engineer – May also be referred to as an "M&E" or "MEP engineer" and typically holds a degree in mechanical or electrical engineering.[a]
· Project manager – Typically holds a 4-year or greater higher education qualification, but is often also qualified in another field such as architecture, civil engineering or quantity surveying.
· Structural engineer – Typically holds a bachelor's or master's degree in structural engineering.
· Quantity surveyor – Typically holds a bachelor's degree in quantity surveying. UK chartered status is gained from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Industry scale and characteristics
The output of the global construction industry was worth an estimated $10.8 trillion in 2017, and in 2018 was forecast to rise to $12.9 trillion by 2022. Since 2010, China has been the world's largest single construction market. The United States is the second largest construction market with a 2018 output of $1.581 trillion.
In the United States in February 2020, around $1.4 trillion worth of construction work was in progress, according to the Census Bureau, of which just over $1.0 trillion was for the private sector — split roughly 55:45% between residential and nonresidential; the remainder was public sector, predominantly for state and local government.
Construction is a major source of employment in most countries; high reliance on small businesses, and under-representation of women are common traits. For example:
· In the U.S., construction employed around 11.4 million people in 2020, with a further 1.8 million employed in architectural, engineering and related professional services — equivalent to just over 8% of the total U.S. workforce. The construction workers were employed in over 843,000 organizations, of which 838,000 were privately held businesses. In March 2016, 60.4% of construction workers were employed by businesses with fewer than 50 staff. Women are substantially underrepresented — relative to their share of total employment, comprising 10.3% of the U.S. construction workforce and 25.9% of professional services workers in 2019.
· In the United Kingdom, construction contributed £117 billion (6%) to UK GDP in 2018, and in 2019 employed 2.4 million workers — 6.6% of all jobs. These worked either for 343,000 “registered” construction businesses or for ”'unregistered” businesses, typically self-employed contractors; just over one million small/medium-sized businesses — mainly self-employed individuals — worked in the sector in 2019, comprising about 18% of all UK businesses. Women comprised 12.5% of the UK construction workforce.
According to McKinsey research, productivity growth per worker in construction has lagged behind many other industries across different countries including in the U.S. and in European countries. In the U.S., construction productivity per worker has declined by half since the 1960s.
Kommentare