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Building information modelling (BIM) is being heralded as a remarkable innovation in the built environment sector with expectations of lofty sector-wide improvements. Some countries have shown remarkable levels of uptake of BIM, along the way documenting some evidence of benefits stemming from BIM. However, countries such as India and China are late entrants in the BIM adoption journey and are seeing a slower adoption rate. This study develops a model using the technology–organization–environment framework to study the factors influencing BIM adoption by architectural firms in India and reasons for this slow adoption. The proposed model of BIM adoption is tested using the partial least square method against responses collected from 184 industry professionals based in India. Findings reveal that the adoption of BIM by Indian architectural firms is at the ‘experimentation’ stage with variables such as expertise, trialability, and management support exhibiting a strong positive influence on BIM adoption. The study also explains the status of BIM adoption in India with the help of a multi-level social construct, which places the level of BIM adoption in India between the micro- and meso-levels of organizational scales. Similarities and dissimilarities with previous findings are discussed in the paper to highlight the findings of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

LOCATION MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA ARCHITECT PAISAJES EMERGENTES PHOTOGRAPHY IWAN BAAN Most swimming pools, for recreation or competition, are enclosed so that they can be used year-round, and the changing rooms and [...]

138 CASTELO NOVO VISITOR CENTRE LOCATION CASTELO NOVO, FUNDAO, PORTUGAL ARCHITECT COMOCO ARCHITECTS WRITER CATHERINE SLESSOR PHOTOGRAPHY FERNANDO GUERRA Named after its 12th-century castle, which also graces its coat of [...]

136 1111 LINCOLN ROAD LOCATION MIAMI, USA ARCHITECT HERZOG & DE MEURON WRITER ROWAN MOORE PHOTOGRAPHY ROLAND HALBE Herzog & de Meuron hand loose in Miami and reinvent the car [...]

124 AHMED BABA CENTRE LOCATION TIMBUKTU, MALI ARCHITECT DHK ARCHITECTS, TWOTHINK ARCHITECTURE WRITER STUPAK LEE PHOTOGRAPHY IWAN BAAN The Ahmed Baba Centre in Timbuktu has the unique mission of preserving [...]

Architecture, engineering, and construction industry participants often find it pragmatic to implement a project-specific dispute resolution ladder (DRL) as a managerial tool to assist in the prompt resolution of claims and change orders (CCOs) that might arise during the project construction phase. This project-specific DRL consists of a single or multiple alternative dispute resolution (ADR) techniques that require capital expenditures to cover the expenses incurred by the owner's/contractor's employees and third-party neutrals. If a project-specific DRL is properly chosen, then the capital expenditures are outweighed by the expected benefits from the DRL implementation; namely, prompt resolution of the CCOs without incurring excessive cost overruns on an already financially stressed project budget, as well as avoiding the escalation of the claims to a dispute that requires long protracted litigation for final settlement. Typically, the decision as to which ADR techniques to include in the project-specific DRL is undertaken during the project planning phase prior to the actual occurrence of the CCOs. In this case, the project owner decide to invest in a DRL in exchange for the expected savings in the project. This decision regarding the project-specific DRL is usually done based on the experience of the project parties with the ADR techniques. However, such a decision needs to be guided by a financial tool that allows the project owner to evaluate alternative DRLs and choose the most economically feasible alternative based on the project and ADR characteristics. In this paper, a financial model is developed to evaluate DRL implementations in construction projects by drawing analogies from real option theory with exogenous competitive entry. More specifically, the occurrence of a given CCO will result in a reduction in the value of expected savings in the project due to DRL implementation. This is similar to the reduction in the gross value of a capital investment project in a commercial property due to competitive entry by another similar commercial property developer in the market. At the same time, the CCO resolution due to an effective DRL implementation will allow project owner to recover part of the losses in the expected savings in the project due to the DRL implementation. The model presented in this paper takes into account the characteristics of the various ADR techniques included in the project-specific DRL, and the characteristics of the CCOs occurring during the construction phase of the project. A case study of a real construction project is used to illustrate the practical implementation of the model. The results indicate that for this case project and from a financial point of view, the investment in the chosen project-specific DRL was not worthwhile because of the high uncertainty in the project, and the low effectiveness of the selected DRL. These conditions did not provide the owner with the anticipated advantage of the DRL implementation in reducing the value of the CCOs occurring in the project. At the same time the cost of the DRL implementation exceeded the actual savings attained in the project. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000132 CE Database subject headings: Change orders; Claims; Construction costs; Dispute resolution; Benefit cost ratios; Mathematical models; Investments. Author keywords: Change orders; Claims; Construction costs; Cost analysis; Dispute resolution; Benefit-cost ratios; Mathematical models.

After Vietnam became a member of the World Trade Organization, Vietnamese architectural, engineering, and construction (A/E/C) firms face competition from not only their domestic competitors but also from foreign A/E/C firms. As most Vietnamese firms are used to operating under a protected setting, they may face difficulties competing in the globalized environment. This study undertakes a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis of Vietnamese A/E/C firms, investigates how they respond to opportunities and threats, and recommends how foreign A/E/C firms operating in Vietnam could respond. Using semistructured interview questions, face-to-face interviews were conducted with Vietnamese and foreign A/E/C firms. The SWOT analysis reveals that Vietnamese A/E/C firms are lagging behind foreign firms in financial capacity, experience in complex projects, knowledge in advanced design and construction technology, and management ability. Industry practitioners from outside Vietnam who are contemplating entering the Vietnamese market can leverage on Vietnamese firms' strengths by forming joint ventures with strong and reputable private Vietnamese firms. To improve their competitive advantage, it is recommended that foreign A/E/C firms offer superior products and services and familiarize themselves with local culture and regulations. They should be mindful of corruption and set up surveillance systems to curb wasteful spending. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000069 CE Database subject headings: Vietnam; International factors; Engineering firms; Construction companies; Agriculture; Economic factors; Case reports.

The structure of Beijing's new terminal uses the minimum of means to achieve its effects. Though the basic format is familiar--a steel canopy over a concrete plinth, glass side screens [...]

Lying at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Denver inhabits a particularly potent interface of geography and topography. Here, the horizontal meets the vertical, as the mind-blowing spaces of the [...]

Renzo Piano needs little introduction. Since the 1970s, he has been one of the most influential forces behind the best of European High-Tech. While thoroughly ltalian, epitomising many of the [...]

A good deal has been written on strategy that explains how firms compete. However, there is nothing yet in the literature that explains the relationship between the strategies used by firms in an offshore context and the kinds of localizational adaptations a firm makes to serve those strategic ambitions. This paper investigates 60 foreign firms active in the Chinese architecture/engineering/construction industry, measures their rates of localization across five localization parameters, and identifies specific strategic orientations associated with varying rates of localization across those five parameters. The approach used is case study based, using data collected from semistructured interviews and in-house documentation. In describing the relationship between measured rates of localization and the associated observed strategic orientations of firms, this paper concludes by offering a new model of strategy as a function of localization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ring House by young duo TNA (Makoto Takei and Chie Nabeshima) is a unique commission for an emerging Japanese architect. Built for a speculative developer on an expansive suburban site, [...]

BACKGROUND London's Docklands occupy land beyond the boundaries of the city to the east. Between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the development of the docks epitomised the age of imperial [...]

BACKGROUND From the eighteenth century to the 1950s, villages, towns and mini-cities gradually coalesced to become the London metropolis. Historic maps of London show this gradual evolution over 150 years. [...]

Samuel Mockbee, an architect set up the Auburn University Rural Studio to improve the living and working conditions of the South's most impoverished citizens. Through the Rural Studio he raised the spirits of the rural poor through the creation of homes and community facilities that aspired to the same architectural ideals and virtues, which have substantial budgets.

You would not be blamed for failing to recognise Tadao Ando's hand in this his latest work. More known for architectural set pieces that are as laden with ritual as [...]

Given the success of the Grimshaw Eden Project (AR August 2001), the spectacular 'biomes' which enclose a series of environments and associated plants and trees, the task of adding an [...]

If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise; a very big surprise, but a welcome one at that. For the people of San Francisco [...]

Founded in 1995, Merrima operates as a design unit within the New South Wales Government Architect's Office, specializing in buildings specifically for Aboriginal communities. The name can be translated as [...]

When in 1998 the French luxury goods company Louis Vuitton acquired a commercial lot in Nagoya, Japan, its architecture department was faced with producing a design for its first stand-alone [...]

Most architects know the famous photographs of the Katsura Palace at Kyoto in Japan and have marvelled at the subtle treatment of the ground plane: the apparently casual but carefully [...]

The Swiss it seems love boxes. Big ones, small ones, glass, stone: boxes as isolated objects, beautifully detailed externally with delightful internal spaces. Without formal convention or decorative motif indicating [...]

'An island if it's big enough is no better than a continent. It has to be really quite small before it feels like an island; and this story will show [...]

As land is both plentiful and relatively cheap in Portugal, the standard model for the family house tends to be the low-density villa on a plot. While this might fulfil [...]

Working with existing buildings is an important aspect of Eduardo Souto de Moura's oeuvre, but perhaps even he could not have imagined that he would be called upon to remodel [...]

Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus are brothers who graduated in consecutive years from the architecture faculty of Lisbon's Technical University in the late 1980s. Both worked with Goncalo Byrne before [...]

Europe's latter-day gladiators congregated in Portugal this summer to huff and puff their way through Euro 2004, the 12th quadrennial European soccer championships. Sporting spectacles have become the modern equivalent [...]

ARX Portugal is a collective of architects established in Lisbon in 1991 by brothers Jose and Nuno Mateus, both graduates of the city's Technical University. Through the experience of studying [...]

On Jacobsen's ideal platform, an absolute architectural morality prevails--there can be no mistakes and no excuses, no afterthoughts and no escape clauses, about the siting of the individual components of [...]

The University of Arizona (UA) came into being in the late nineteenth century at a time when college education in the USA was neither common nor an especially high civic [...]

This year's German Federal Garden Exhibition (Bundesgartenschau) (1) is at Potsdam, Frederick the Great's town near Berlin and traditional headquarters of the Prussian army. Bornstedter Fields, which form the site, [...]

The article features the architectural firm Amanda Levete Architects, which is led by director Amanda Levete. It states that the firm is in existence for six months, in which its projects are managed by Levete and are designed under Future Systems. It adds that research systems of the firm focus on areas including new technologies, materials and science that are similar to Future Systems. It mentions three projects of the firm, such as the Spencer Dock Bridge in Dublin, Ireland, the Hill Place in London, England, and the Central Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. It says that creating vectors in design development that enables the project to grow and stretch its historic interwoven research into evolving trajectories is one of the core strengths of the firm.

The article discusses alternative practices used in the architectural profession. The author analyzes three architectural practices that work outside the relative comfort and conformity of architectural practice including Interboro Partners, Apolonija Sustersic, and Stealth. Topics of discussion include the professional qualities seen in the practices, hybrid architectural practices that address the fluid paradigms of politics and culture, and the manner in which architectural practice has been utilized to entrench hegemonies.

The article discusses alternative approaches to the structure of an architectural practice, examining whether the procedures used in firms have become too standardized to be effective to the needs of its clients and society. The global financial crisis has forced design firms to find creative uses for employees, the article indicates. Topics include preferences for stylistic flamboyance over fiscal prudence, computer technology that allows any conceivable structure to be delineated, and broadening the applications and definitions of green design.

After long years of muddle, argument and indecision on the part of various authorities and politicians, London Docklands is being gradually redeveloped. Yet only a few architects and developers have [...]

Evocative of eighteenth-century naval warehouses and ropewalks, this maritime museum in Karlskrona forms a dignified addition to a historically resonant setting. For 400 years, Karlskrona has been the main base [...]