Economy

Keeping building costs within reasonable margins has always been one of the foremost goals of any design process. In the usual design practice, costs liable to be controlled by the designer were direct building costs of manufacture, transportation an erection on the building site. With the emerhgence of a more sustainability-oriented conception of the design process, however, costs are being increasingly considered which result also from the operation, maintenance, and final disposal of the building. Therefore, the designer’s view is centred upon a more holistic understanding of the planner’s task. For this purpose, certain prognoses need to be made regarding the prospective service life of the building which are associated with a certain degree of uncertainty but can be based upon a fund of empirical values.