Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent sustainable Construction - I3con

SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION HANDBOOK 2
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PREFACE
Foreword
The European construction industry is highly diverse with the supply side comprising
anything from relatively few huge multinational organisations employing many 10,000s of
personnel to several millions of SMEs and sole traders. It is inherently fragmented with a
wide range of professionals, trades and materials suppliers utilised to create a building. This
fragmentation is intrinsically inefficient.
The I3CON research project aims to enable the transformation towards the European
Construction industry delivering Industrially produced, Integrated processes and Intelligent
building systems that will deliver ultra high performance buildings.
Achievements and outcomes from the project will be marked by construction times being cut
by 50% and construction costs reduced by 25%. It is not just about construction companies
being more productive and profitable; the intention is to create improved life cycle value for
the end users where life cycle costs will be reduced by up to 40% with improved flexibility,
reduced energy consumption and improved comfort and security.
This handbook, “Sustainable Construction: Industrialised, Integrated and Intelligent” is
created to showcase some of the recent developments in the area of industrialised, integrated
and intelligent sustainable construction. The portfolio of chapters in this book presents ways
that industrialised, integrated and intelligent methods and techniques can be used to help the
construction industry become more sustainable.
This is the second handbook of I3CON and is aimed at helping stakeholders to understand
and motivate others into thinking along the I3CON principles. It has been formulated at the
outset of the project; a subsequent volume will provide more information at the outturn of the
work.
The I3CON Project
I3CON is an industry-led collaborative research project, part-funded by the EU under
Framework 6. Commencing in October 2006, it is a four year project involving 26 partners
from 14 countries across Europe.
I3CON Handbook 2
The I3CON project consortium launched this book “Sustainable Construction: Industrialised,
Integrated and Intelligent - I3CON Handbook 2” to disseminate work carried out within the
area of sustainable construction to a wider audience.