Blog author: Richard Saxon CBE, JCT Chairman Construction used to be the most local of industries. Buildings were made from the nearby materials by local craftsmen and master masons. There were no ‘professionals’. As modern materials came in so they were sourced from further afield and professionals emerged to decide how to use them. Whilst bulky materials are expensive to ship, the UK has largely gone over to importing building products, with a major negative balance of payments for manufactured components. For a wide variety…

Blog author: Richard Saxon, JCT Chairman The conventional client for a construction project has focussed on achieving success in getting their requirements delivered to quality, on time and on budget. It has been a capital project mind-set, measuring achievement over the period up to the final account. Those clients who own the building tend to change the accounting status and the leadership involved at the end of the capital phase, handing the facility manager, who is rarely involved before this point, a bundle of information…

Blog author: Richard Saxon, JCT Chairman Every country has a construction industry unique to itself. Members of each see their way of developing, designing, building and operating buildings as normal and other country’s ways as exotic. Mostly however, members don’t look outside their own construction culture. I have often thought that a good module for courses in professional education would be ‘International Comparative Construction’, teaching students to question how and why things are done the way they are at home. Japan, Germany, the USA, France…