A study of professional perspectives on structural frame selection

The choice of an appropriate structural frame can contribute to effective short- and long-term performance, and enhance client satisfaction but limited research indicates that the issues taken into account during structural frame selection are not very well understood. With this in mind, a major research programme, including interviews and an industry survey, examined the attitudes of project managers, cost consultants and construction clients in analysing the issues they typically consider when choosing the structural frame for a building, and to provide insights about how such decisions are made in practice. Ten key issues were identified as being the most important affecting structural frame selection, but the extent to which different parties considered these and at what stage was found to vary. Also, the variations, between what these parties themselves think of the issues and what others perceive their attitudes to be, were examined. In particular, the results showed that what clients perceive differs considerably from how clients' views are perceived by others. For instance, according to cost consultants and project managers, their clients' preference to regularly select a 'preferred' frame type or material is a far more widespread tendency than clients themselves actually acknowledged.