Abstract:
The work is an attempt to understand the relationship between Design and Economics.
There are, in practice, frequent and bitter conflicts between those whose major concern is design and those whose major concern is obtaining buildings as cheaply as possible; and it certainly is the case that there are cost limits below which good building is hardly feasible. The reasons for conflict and failure are partly due to misunderstanding between the clients, builders and architects on what good building is, but there are also genuine difficulties, aggravated by the industry's methods of working, in translating design concepts into actual buildings which can be built within some realistic cost limits.
The aim of this work is not to elaborate on cost estimation techniques, cost control or valuation but is an attempt to understand some basic principles and current practices and through which explore the interrelationships between design and costs and provide an understanding on how design decisions affect the economics of a building process and how economic realities affect design.
Simple concepts of economics; concepts such as technological advances, economics of scale, competition cost and price can be employed without any need to trot through the conventional
analysis.
The central idea is the link between design and cost. Inevitably all design decisions have cost implications; the shape of a proposed construction, the materials from which it is to be made and the method by which it is to be built will ultimately determine its cost �â� � and its expected cost may determine whether it will be built at all. Furthermore, when it is completed and in use its design
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will have important, perhaps predominating, effects on the costs incurred in using it, as well as the effectiveness with which it can fulfill the purpose of its users.
