Spon Research provides a series of advanced books for built environment researchers and professionals from one of the world’s leading publishers.
Edited
By Peter Newton, Keith Hampson, Robin Drogemuller
November 18, 2016
Buildings and infrastructure represent principal assets of any national economy as well as prime sources of environmental degradation. Making them more sustainable represents a key challenge for the construction, planning and design industries and governments at all levels; and the rapid ...
By Daniel W.M. Chan, Joseph H.L. Chan
November 03, 2016
The problems inherent in the traditional design-bid-build procurement method often lead to the adversarial working relationships within the construction industry. Target cost contracts, accompanied by a gain-share/pain-share arrangement serving as a cost incentive mechanism, have emerged in ...
Edited
By Brian Atkin, Jan Borgbrant
July 27, 2016
Novel research in construction management is often distant from existing practice. This collection of reviews serves to bridge this gap under three major themes: innovation, organisation and human behaviour, and methods and tools. It outlines a series of successful collaborative projects between ...
Edited
By Chimay Anumba, John M. Kamara, Anne-Francoise Cutting-Decelle
July 15, 2016
Concurrent Engineering (CE) is a systematic approach to the integrated and concurrent design of products and related processes, including aspects as diverse as manufacture and support. It is only now being carefully applied to the construction sector and offers considerable potential for increasing...
By Alexander Styhre
July 08, 2016
Knowledge management presents a new way of understanding organizations and companies, and is especially suited to sophisticated and highly technical firms and operations such as those in the construction industry. This new book draws on hard data from three separate research programs in ...
Edited
By Geoffrey Shen, Peter Brandon, Andrew Baldwin
May 13, 2016
Most construction projects are large and costly. Collaborative working involves two or more stakeholders sharing their efforts and resources to complete the project more effectively and efficiently. Collaborative, integrative and multi-disciplinary teams can tackle the complex issues involved in ...
By Peter Barrett, Martin Sexton, Angela Lee
May 13, 2016
Innovation in Small Construction Firms promotes the benefits of innovation, and stimulate innovation capability within and between small and medium sized (SMEs) construction firms in an effort to bring in a new 'can innovate, should innovate, want to innovate' culture to the construction industry. ...
By Ani Raiden, Andrew Dainty, Richard Neale
April 27, 2016
Construction is one of the most challenging industrial environments for effective people management. It is characterised by geographically dispersed projects, production-oriented management styles, long working hours, high levels of staff turnover and employment practices grounded in the ...
Edited
By Andrew Dainty, Stuart Green, Barbara Bagilhole
December 18, 2015
Construction is one of the largest and most people-intensive industrial sectors. In many countries, however, construction is also one of the most highly criticized in terms of its employment practices and industrial relations. People and culture are too often seen as variables that must be ...
By Nyuk Hien Wong, Yu Chen
December 18, 2015
Conventional air conditioning is not a sustainable solution to the challenge of a hot or humid climate. The climate problem is compounded in so-called Urban Heat Islands, urban areas where the air can be 3–5°C hotter than its surrounding areas and where pollution levels are consequently raised. ...
By Anita Cerić
December 08, 2015
The relationship between project managers representing project owners and those on the contractor side is often threatened by communication risk. The main communication risk minimization strategy in the construction phase is trust, which plays a major role in the success of key working ...
By Stephen Emmitt, Christopher Gorse
November 24, 2015
Construction teams are usually complex, interdisciplinary and temporary, and, as such, the need for effective communication is crucial. However, published data regarding the manner in which individuals interact within the temporary project team is scarce, with little other than anecdotal evidence ...