CLIENT OBJECTIVES FOR BUILDINGS – 2

Turnkey client is interchangeable with the design/build client in concept. Both are based on a complete project being turned over to the owner by a single entity that is responsible for designing and constructing the project. The owner has little input in the process until it is turned over. The turnkey developer or contractor employs the services of an architect, or has an on-staff registered architect, who designs the project in accordance with the owner’s program requirements. Bids are usually taken on turnkey developer designs and cost proposals to meet these requirements. Once a turnkey developer is selected, the owner may sell the property to the developer or authorize its purchase from a third party under option. From this point forward the owner has little or no participation in the project; the developer is the turnkey client of an externally employed architect. The architect is then working on the developer team and is not an independent voice for the real owner. All decisions are then made by the turnkey developer relative to the architect’s services. Design/build client also has the architect on the developer team and not performing services for the owner. Designers/builders offer to design and construct a facility for a fixed lump-sum price.

CLIENT OBJECTIVES FOR BUILDINGS – 1

Building types, time schedules, building attitudes, and legal and economic conditions affect relations with the four major client types for whom an architect may provide services. These are known as the traditional, developer, turnkey, and design/ build client base. Traditional client is usually an individual or organization building a one-time project with no in-house building expertise. The client, however, possesses the innate excitement for the process of witnessing the transformation of plans into the built environment and seeks an architect to assert control of the process. In most cases, this includes the architect’s definition of the client’s space needs, program and physical plant requirements. A more sophisticated traditional client might be a large corporation, university or other institutional entity that may or may not have an architect on staff, but still looks to a selected architect to guide the development process. In this case, the client may have more input into the client’s program definition based on the in-house capabilities. In both cases, the architect plays the lead role in the management process and normally provides programming, design, construction documents, bidding, and characteristic administration in the role of the traditional architect. Developer client offers building process management that reduces some of the architect’s management role in managing the overall project and provides alternative methods for approaching design and construction. Development processes such as scope documentation, fast track, and bid packages are construction methodologies resulting from the developer client’s need to accelerate the total process due to fluctuating interest rates and the need to be first in providing space in the marketplace. Through this client base the acceptance of a construction consultant as a necessary part of the design team evolved. The construction consultant enables accelerated schedules to be met, provides for the compression of time, and allows a contractor to be selected by the client to build while the architect is still designing.

Lighting and Acoustics

Lighting: For health, safety, and comfort of occupants, a building interior should be provided with an adequate quantity of light, good quality of illumination, and proper color of light. The required illumination may be supplied by natural or artificial means. Daylight is the source of natural illumination. It enters a building through a fenestration, such as windows in the exterior walls or monitors or skylights on the roof. Artificial illumination can be obtained through consumption of electrical energy in incandescent, fluorescent, electroluminescent, or other electric lamps. The light source is housed in a luminaries, or lighting fixture. 

Acoustics: The science of sound, its production, transmission, and effects are applied in the building design for sound and vibration control. A major objective of acoustics is provision of an environment that enhances communication in the building interior, whether the sound is created by speech or music. This is accomplished by installation of enclosures with appropriate acoustic properties around sound sources and receivers. Another important objective is reduction or elimination of noise—unwanted sound—from building interiors. This may be accomplished by elimination of the noise at the source, by installation of sound barriers, or by placing sound-absorbing materials on the surfaces of enclosures. Still another objective is reduction or elimination of vibrations that can annoy occupants, produce noise by rattling loose objects, or crack or break parts or contents of a building. The most effective means of preventing undesirable vibrations is correction of the source. Otherwise, the source should be isolated from the building structure and potential transmission paths should be interrupted with carefully designed discontinuities. 

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Vertical-Circulation Elements

In multistorey buildings, provision must be made for movement of people, supplies, and equipment between the various levels. This may be accomplished with ramps, stairs, escalators, elevators, dumbwaiters, vertical conveyors, pneumatic tubes, mail chutes, or belt conveyors. Some of the mechanical equipment, however, may not be used for conveyance of people. A ramp, or sloping floor, is often used for movement of people and vehicles in such buildings as stadiums and garages. In most buildings, however, stairs are installed because they can be placed on a steeper slope and therefore occupy less space than ramps. Nevertheless, federal rules require at least one handicap accessible entrance for all new buildings.
                    A stairway consists of a series of steps and landings. Each step consists of a horizontal platform, or tread, and a vertical separation or enclosure, called a riser. Railings are placed along the sides of the stairway and floor openings for safety reasons. Also, structural members may be provided to support the stairs and the floor edges. Often, in addition, the stairway must be enclosed for fire protection. Escalators, or powered stairs, are installed in such buildings as department stores and transportation terminals, or in the lower stories of office buildings and hotels, where there is heavy pedestrian traffic between floors. Such powered stairs consist basically of a conveyor belt with steps attached; an electric motor for moving the belt, and steps, controls, and structural supports. Elevators are installed to provide speedier vertical transportation, especially in tall buildings. Transportation is provided in an enclosed car that moves along guides, usually within a fire-resistant vertical shaft but sometimes unenclosed along the exterior of a building. The shaft, or the exterior wall, has openings, protected by doors, at each floor to provide access to the elevator car. The car may be suspended on and moved by cables or set atop a piston moved by hydraulic pressure.

Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning

Part of the environmental control systems within buildings, along with lighting and sound control, HVAC is often necessary for the health and comfort of building occupants. Sometimes, however, HVAC may be needed for manufacturing processes, product storage, or operation of equipment, such as computers. HVAC usually is used to control temperature, humidity, air movement, and air quality in the interior of buildings. Ventilation is required to supply clean air for breathing, to furnish air for operation of combustion equipment, and to remove contaminated air. Ventilation, however, also can be used for temperature control by bringing outside air into a building when there is a desirable temperature difference between that air and the interior air. The simplest way to ventilate is to open windows. When this is not practicable, mechanical ventilation is necessary. This method employs fans to draw outside air into the building and distribute the air, often through ducts, to interior spaces. The method, however, can usually be used only in mild weather. To maintain comfort conditions in the interior, the fresh air may have to be heated in cold weather and cooled in hot weather. Heating and cooling of a building interior may be accomplished in any of a multitude of ways.

Happy NEW YEAR 2009

Welcome 2009. It was a busy year that has passed. and finally 2009 has arrived. i wish all my friends a happy New Year 2009. I take immense pleasure to be your first wisher. 2008 was a busy year in my life as i had to go through different dark patches in my life, but GOD never forsaked me. Please take my testimony of keeping your faith in GOD so that he takes care of everything.