星空传媒

Title The 星空传媒 Regulations: Explained and Illustrated (12th edition)

Authors MJ Billington, MW Simons, JR Waters

Publisher Blackwell

Pages Stopped counting at 900

Since the 11th edition in 1999, we've seen some of the most radical changes to the technical requirements of the 星空传媒 Regulations and their supporting guidance since the change from prescriptive to functional regulations in 1985. That's why this book has grown so much. Global warming has played a big part. With the government's commitment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the chapter on conservation of fuel and power has been rewritten to reflect new Part L regulations and guidance in approved documents L1 and L2. The changes were so extensive that the authors brought in Bob Waters for his expertise in this difficult area of control. And that's not all. Changes to Part E (passage of sound) make pre-completion sound testing of many controlled buildings, such as hotels and care homes, mandatory. Other significant changes have resulted in a new Chapter 7 (fire) covering Part B, and a complete redrafting of the chapters on drainage and waste disposal and heat-producing appliances.

Available from www.constructionbooksdirect.com

Title Rammed Earth: Design and Construction Guidelines

Authors Peter Walker, Rowland Keable, Joe Martin, Vasilios Maniatidis

Publisher BRE Bookshop

Pages 146

Yes, that's right: Build your formwork, shovel in the dirt and pack it down! Rammed earth walling is an attractive and, believe it or not, durable material with a long tradition in the UK and around the world. Granted, it's not the technique of choice for New Orleans or other flood-prone areas, but it has stood the test of time in environments as diverse as apartment blocks in Germany and the Alhambra in Spain (which seems to be doing okay). While the authors of this entertaining and accessible book are clearly fans of the technique, they are perfectly frank about its limitations, including its propensity to, er, dissolve when wet, and the fact that slapping on a coat of sealant creates problems of its own. On the plus side, it's sustainable, fast, creates more imaginative, healthy internal spaces, and doesn't require highly skilled labour. But you still have to know what you're doing! Buy the book for a guide to everything from preliminary design considerations, material selection, coatings and maintenance.

Available from www.brebookshop.com

Title Delay and Disruption in Construction Contracts (third edition)

Author Keith Pickavance

Publisher LLP

Pages 936

Widely touted as the first decent English work on disruption and delay (before the first edition in 1997, you had to look to the US), Pickavance's book delves exhaustively into the single most common cause of disputes in construction - delays. Inspired by a long-overdue insight, Pickavance discerned that while contractors spend a large part of their time bringing delay claims, they don't often do it properly. This book aims to guide readers on how to analyse, logically and systematically, time and the effects that disruptive events have on costs. Pickavance hopes that an attendant result will be a reduction in claims, as everybody in the construction supply chain starts to wake up to how delays affect time and cost, and to get more effective in compiling evidence for a robust claim. The book also has sections on managing change and delay while work is in progress, advice on forecasting delay and preparing contemporaneous records. Not a light read, by any means, but that hasn't stopped it selling well in the UK and around the world.

Available from www.constructionbooksdirect.com

Title Putting a Price on Sustainability

Authors BRE and Cyril Sweet

Publisher BRE Bookshop

Pages 21

Why don't we rush to build more sustainably? Because it costs more, right? Well, not necessarily, according to this direct and to-the-point little volume. It's packed with evidence collected by the BRE and Cyril Sweet and you know what they say: nothing helps an argument so much as facts. This report identifies the costs associated with a range of sustainable approaches to different building types, and shows how to make big improvements at very little extra cost. Typically, it says, cost consultants can add as much as 10% to capital costs to allow for more sustainable features. But in clear, simple case studies of a house, an office building and a PFI health centre, the report shows that good eco-friendly ratings can be achieved for cost hikes measured in fractions of percentage points - or for no extra cost at all. Plus, the report identifies significant lifecycle cost savings to be had from thinking green.

Available from www.brebookshop.com

Title The Green Guide to Housing Specification

Authors Jane Anderson, Nigel Howard

Publisher BRE Bookshop

Pages 40

A typical house weighs 150 tonnes. Is that good, or bad, you ask? Well, it's bad. Tiles, blocks, timber, brick, aluminium, aggregates, plastics, glass - it all imposes an environmental cost to extract, manufacture, transport and assemble. You can see why the environmental impact of housing is considerable. And while we've been trying to save energy in heating houses for a good 30 years, we've only just started to worry about the impact of materials. This book is to help you stop worrying, or make you worry in a more effective way. It contains typical wall, roof, floor and other constructions listed against a simple rating from good to poor. The rating arises out of a matrix analysis of many environmental issues including fossil fuel depletion, freight transport, human toxicity, acid deposition, mineral extraction, water extraction and waste disposal. It used to be that all the best minds went into making weapons and money. This little example of sophisticated thinking in the service of the planet is nothing if not reassuring.

Available from www.brebookshop.com

Title Code of Practice for Project Management (third edition)

Authors CIOB-chaired working group

Publisher Blackwell

Pages 214

In the foreword to the latest edition of this durable text, Sir Stuart Lipton says a lot has changed since it first went to press in 1991: "nothing more so than the demands placed on the participants in the construction process". Well, he should know. As chief executive of developer Stanhope, he's been leading the charge! Ever game, the CIOB rose to the challenge, convening dozens of big-hitters from all relevant professions to produce what is a remarkably slim book, considering how tempting it would have been to shovel every bit of advice in. Many of the principles of project management, as a discrete discipline, were codified in the US. But the CIOB has been adapting them to construction since 1979. This edition features new guidance on EU procurement procedures, partnering, project risk assessment, environmental impact assessment, value for money frameworks, and performance management plans. The result should make clients happy. Sir Michael Latham called it "an outstanding example of collaboration between key professional industry bodies working in a team".

Available from www.constructionbooksdirect.com

Title Modern Methods of House Construction: A Surveyor's Guide

Author Keith Ross

Publisher BRE Bookshop

Pages 60

The thing about "non-traditional" ways of building houses is that they've been around for such a long time. Prefab, in situ, precast, metal-frame, timber-frame - we've dabbled in these techniques since Tudor times. Well, timber-frame, anyway. And despite the fact that you can't get a mortgage on some houses, pressure from government to build more and the scarcity of skilled labour have led to a push for more factory-based systems. But, since many housebuilders want to disguise the fact that their three-bed semis have not, in fact, been mellowing in their cul-de-sacs since the Wars of the Roses (presumably for reasons discussed above), they make them look traditional. This clever little book gives specific examples of the visual clues that can help the surveyor to recognise modern methods of construction, including brick slips, brick-faced concrete panels, volumetric units and floor cassettes. For instance, the absence of weep holes could alert the surveyor to a house that is not standard brick and block. Or, if the brickwork is unnervingly regular, it may mean more than a mystery band of 眉ber-brickies. Altogether an eye-opening read, suitable for sleuthful surveyors - and housebuilders wanting to up their game!

Available from www.brebookshop.com

Title Barry's Advanced Construction of 星空传媒s

Authors Stephen Emmitt & Christopher Gorse

Publisher Blackwell

Pages 625

This venerable tome has been around in developing editions since 1958, and has become a standard text for students of construction management. But the construction milieu is changing all the time with advances in technology, regulations, standards and codes. Social pressures also drive evolution. This major revision, published this year, marks a significant new stage in the series. Prefabrication isn't new but in this edition the authors devote chapters to the broader movement toward modern methods of construction including lean production techniques, volumetric components trucked to site and plugged into services, and the overall drive toward the "controlled environment of the factory". Further in keeping with the times, there is a new chapter on alternative methods of construction, which the authors call "the antithesis of industrial production". Earth, straw, green roofs and recycled materials are among the materials and techniques explored to respect emerging values of local resourcing and sustainability. 2006 is a bit late for the book to claim to lead the charge on new techniques and sensibilities, but it should be encouraging that new cohorts of construction students are being presented with these innovations as standard.

Available from www.constructionbooksdirect.com

Title Value & Risk Management: A Guide to Best Practice

Author Michael F Dallas

Publisher Blackwell & CIOB

Pages 380

For Peter Rogers to endorse something, it has to be good. The former chair of the Strategic Forum was notoriously wary of rubber-stamping any old initiative looking for credibility in an industry plagued with "initiativitis". But he liked this book, calling it "an essential read for those who want to add value and reduce uncertainty" in their projects. While some books on the subject of value and risk management descend into such impenetrable theory that hardly any practitioner would read them, this book is proud to err on the side of sound, practical advice. Facing squarely up to what works and what doesn't in the UK and elsewhere, it covers underlying concepts but also practical ways of handling people and organisations with divergent interests. Also unique to Dallas's approach is the conviction that you can't have the positives of value-giving without the negatives of risk-taking. The book also includes a fascinating exploration of the attributes, emotional fluency and strategic awareness necessary for leadership roles in major projects.

Available from www.constructionbooksdirect.com

Title Concrete in Aggressive Ground (third edition)

Authors Cross-sector steering group

Publisher BRE Bookshop

Sponsor The Concrete Centre

Pages 62

You don't think of the ground as being hostile per se - unless your bungee cord snaps - but it is! Especially to concrete. Sulfates, acids and other naturally occurring chemical agents in the innocent-looking terra firma are just waiting to turn your lovingly poured piles and slabs to mush. (Surprisingly, human-generated toxic substances are less of a problem than natural ones.) Researchers have known about aggressive ground for at least 60 years, and have designed concrete accordingly. But occasionally some new, sinister agent turns up, which the BRE's existing design guides are not equipped to deal with. Examples include pyrite, and the thaumasite form of sulfate attack. The result has been that digests of guidance have become longer and more complicated. This edition sets out to simplify the accumulated advice. It describes modes of chemical attacks, explores how to assess the chemical aggressiveness of the ground, recommends concrete specifications, and gives guidelines on specifying a range of precast elements such as pipe systems. It also includes a new ranking of cements with respect to sulfate resistance, a revision of sulfate class limits and simpler requirements for protective measures.

Available from www.brebookshop.com