The contribution of a builda bility assessment model towards sustainability of designs

Construction designs have often been criticized by the industry as lacking in buildability, which means they are not '' builder friendly ''. As such, contractors have to spend extra time, material and manpower resources to cope with these non-buildability designs in the construction stage. This can give rise to unnecessary waste, making the building resources unsustainable in the long run. To move towards more buildable designs, the first step is to develop some common yardsticks whereby designers and building clients can compare the buildability of their designs against some benchmarks accepted by the industry as exemplars. Being inspired by a Buildability Assessment System first developed in Japan and adapted by Singapore, a team of researchers has embarked on establishing a similar system for the construction industry in Hong Kong, where building designs have their own characteristics and pattern. This paper is a discussion on factors affecting buildability and the possible contributions brought about by a Buildability Assessment Model towards improving sustainability of building designs. It also outlines the methodology adopted for the Hong Kong prototype model, which has its own distinctive features.