6.3 Suspended Ceiling Design Process - Bilkent University

countries which have a classification system for building parts. The need
for a universal elemental system has encouraged the International Council
for Building Research Studies and Documentation (CIB) and the
Construction Economics European Committee (CEEC) to establish an
elemental format to collect costs for international exchange. A major
objective of the CEEC format is to make it compatible with the existing
formats of as many European countries as possible. However, the CEEC
format has not been widely adopted (Charette and Marshall, 1999).
UNIFORMAT is a preferable classification system for the purposes of this
dissertation due to the following reasons:
1. Its framework is hierarchical to allow aggregation and
summarization at different levels.
2. Its framework accommodates unlisted items based on the judgment
of building professionals.
3. Included items have high frequency of occurrence.
4. Included items are distinctive.
5. It can be applied to any building type, although it has been designed
for commercial buildings.
6. It separates the classification of building elements from the
classification of building related site work.
Moreover, UNIFORMAT relates to other widely used classifications such
as CIQS and RICS.
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