Architecture, Urban Design and the Building Industry: the Hub of Outsourcing (Published)
Building construction is complex, involving a wide range of building personnel, products, services and systems (be it mechanical, electrical or integrated service systems). The design process is highly organized, draws upon research establishments that studied designs, material properties, performance, code officials who adopt and enforce safety standards, and design professionals who determine user needs. All these in today’s world, involved Division of Labor and Specialization baptized, Outsourcing. The practice of architecture and building construction have for decades, adopted the services of the experts in putting together, buildings, structures, towns and communities without fundamentally baptizing the services with a name. The primary aim of this paper is to establish that Outsourcing has been in existence in architecture and building industry since the evolution of housing. To accomplish that, the authors adopted content base analysis, qualitative research method with data from secondary and primary sources. The building team includes, but not limited to the services of the architects, urban and physical planers, structural engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, builders, bricklayers, carpenters, etc. Be it the architect or the bricklayer, the components of the building have always been outsourced to different specialty areas or individuals with the capacity and special skills to put them together in what the economists called, “Division of Labor” and Social Sciences called, “Outsourcing.”
Keywords: Architecture, Building, Experts, Outsourcing, Socio-Economic, Specialization