The Economic design of construction projects. The Construction Economist

"The ""Economic"" design of construction projects: the Construction Economist Alberto Pavan In an ever more competitive and globalised age, where information is becoming increasingly accessible, with a consequent plateau effect on profit margins (while expenditure on resources spirals up), it is clear that an in-depth review of standard project fees for the promotion and development sectors of the building industry is required. The present acculturation of counterparts in the construction process (landowners, public authorities, construction companies and users) has brought about a serious crisis to the longstanding approach to property development, essentially based on the simple reduction of costs. According to this approach, generating ""value"" in a highly speculative climate basically means a comprehensive attempt to keep expenditure down (Financial Approach: Italian Standard UNI 10839). It is clear that we need to move on from the ""value-cost"" binomial typical of this outlook to a more complex algorithm where ""value"" has a different expression in the relationship between ""quality"" and ""cost"" as a function of possible ""income"" or ""profits"" (income for market goods; profits for public goods: UNI 10839). This is described by Caruso's formula1: This innovative method of approaching property development is a result of Value Management theories and requires a new player to be introduced to the building process who is able to manage alternative project decisions in an ""economic"" manner, namely the Construction Economist (Economic Approach: UNI 10839). This new participant, whose role exceeds and is different to that of Cost Engineer and Quantity Surveyor, supports the developer (whether public or private) and the design team in making strategic and operational decisions in order to wholly fulfil the final user's implicit and explicit needs while paying particular attention to the consumption of available resources. A rapid survey of the current situation in Italy regarding the management and control of project costs will allow guidelines to be drawn up for the introduction and training of this new figure in the building process."