Buildability as a design concept for architects: a case study of laboratory buildings

The concept of buildability is an approach to architectural design which relates to the awareness of the designer for the method of construction of the building. It is the taking into consideration of the process of construction to a high degree in the construction of the building. The opposite of this approach could be loosely called an ‘artistic’ method, where the designer hands a concept drawing to somebody else and says ‘build that’, with little concern for how the design should be built (definition contributed by James Harrison, Senior Lecturer, Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore). In addition to this design orientation, buildability, as viewed by the building industry, is the ease with which the building can be built. Yet these definitions seem to lack precision when placed into operation in the design environment. To understand the notion of buildability further, a study of concrete construction techniques, pre‐cast or in situ, were used to evaluate the extent to which buildability techniques were employed by the designers and the effectiveness of the approaches. The methodology used followed existing approaches to studying buildability but expanded and focused on two case study buildings. In this way, a more holistic picture of the influence of the construction system and its buildability could be gained.