Steel Buildings in Europe

Part 2: Concept Design 2 - 7 The ins tallation of th e prim ary stru cture and floors ta kes approxim ately 20-25% of the total construction period but its completion permits an early start on cladding and servicing. It is for these reasons that steel construction leads to considerable advantage in term s of speed of construction, as it is a prefabricated and essentially ‘dry’ form of construction. In a typical construction project, savi ngs in construction period using steel construction compared to other materials can range from 5% to 15% depending on the level of prefabrication that is used. The main programme benefit relative to concrete construction is the creation of a water-tight building envelope early in the construction process. Financial benefits from faster construction are:  Savings in site preliminaries  Site productivity gains for the remainder of the construction  Reduced interest payments  Earlier income from the new facility. Typical time-related cost savings are 2% to 4% of the tota l costs i.e. a significant proportion of the superstructu re cost. Furthermor e, in renovation projects or m ajor building extensions , speed of construction and reduced disruption to the occupants or adjacent buildings can be even more important. Months 0 4 8 12 16 20 Foundations Superstructure Cladding Services Finishes and fitments Commissioning Figure 1.4 Construction programme of a typical 4 to 6-storey commercial building in steel 1.5 Sustainability Sustainable construction must address three goals:  Environmental criteria  Economic criteria  Social criteria. These three criteria are met by construction in steel: Environmental criteria Steel is on e of the most recov ered a nd recycled m aterials. Som e 84% is recycled with no loss of strength or quality, and 10% reused. Before demolishing a structure, extending a building’s lif e is generally m ore beneficial. This is facilitated by steel construction, since large column-free