AEC Forensics: Architecture, Engineering & Construction Forensics
About the Architecture, Engineering & Construction (A/E/C) Industry
The architecture, engineering and construction fields are responsible for producing the built environment – the homes we live in, the buildings housing our businesses, the infrastructure that makes civilized life possible. The AEC industry has a significant impact on the economy as well as the environment. In response, the last 50 years has seen dramatic changes in the business and technology behind the AEC industry. From the use of computer-aided drafting and design, to systematized workplace efficiency, to research and development of increasingly effective and efficient products, to rigorous development of industry standards and identification of best practices, and to the increasingly widespread adoption of sustainable practices, the industry has become quite sophisticated.
In the past, the state of the industry was largely defined by skilled tradespeople. The focus was not as much on quantity as much as it was quality, and most trades were of a much more artisanal nature. Now much of the industry is defined by business executives meeting the demand of shareholders, meeting deadlines and production goals, complying with increased regulations, shifting the focus to quantity, often at the expense of quality. Efficiency demands and tightened profit margins drove pay for quality workmanship farther down, and now much of the tradespeople are paid on a piece-meal basis. The education system emphasized higher education and “professional” careers and de-emphasized vocational instruction. With less skilled tradespeople, the response by the industry has come to require greater automation with less workers at the journeyman level and more workers that are general laborers. With reduced emphasis on quality, errors in construction are commonplace and defects abound. And as society has become more litigious, so to has the AEC Industry.
In residential construction, it is believed that nearly every project built in the last decade or two has been, or will be subject to litigation as a result of construction defects.
The Role of Forensic Science in the AEC Industry
Here is a nice summary of Forensic Science from Wikipedia:
Forensic science (often shortened to forensics) is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action. Besides its relevance to a legal system, forensics encompasses the accepted scholarly or scientific methodology and norms under which the facts regarding an event, an artifact, or some other physical item (such as a corpse) are ascertained as being the case. The concept, therefore, is related to the notion of authentication, whereby an interest outside of a legal form exists in determining whether an object is what it purports to be, or is alleged as being.
The word forensic comes from the Latin adjective forensis, meaning “of or before the forum.” In Roman times, a criminal charge meant presenting the case before a group of public individuals in the forum. Both the person accused of the crime and the accuser would give speeches based on their side of the story. The individual with the best argument and delivery would determine the outcome of the case. This origin is the source of the two modern usages of the word forensic as a form of legal evidence and as a category of public presentation.
In modern use, the term “forensics” in place of “forensic science” can be considered incorrect as the term “forensic” is effectively a synonym for “legal” or “related to courts”. However, the term is now so closely associated with the scientific field that many dictionaries include the meaning that equates the word “forensics” with “forensic science”.
In the AEC industry, forensic science (or forensics) provides a means for answering questions, especially of a legal nature, as to deficiencies in architectural, engineering and construction activities. As noted above with regard to the general concept of forensic science, AEC forensics “is related to the notion of authentication, whereby an interest outside of a legal form exists in determining whether an object is what it purports to be, or is alleged as being.” Thus, the role of forensics in the AEC industry is to apply scholarly and/or scientific methodology and norms to understanding the underlying facts regarding the built environment.
What was once a subset of certain scientific practices and a limited number of veterans in the AEC industry, construction defect litigation and related fields have grown into a cottage industry of its own. A number of architects, engineers, contractors and others work full time in this field providing expert witness testimony. There are numerous law firms that do nothing but construction defect and related litigation. Insurance carriers that provide coverage to contractors have entire divisions devoted to construction defect claims. A recent conference for professionals in the AEC Forensics industry was held at the Disneyland Hotel with over 1600 attendees. In recent years, several states have passed legislation to specifically address construction defect litigation. In addition, case law and local adoption of various codes result in a constant state of flux. And yet to date, there hasn’t been a single resource for news for the AEC Forensics industry.
The Role of AECforensics.com in the AEC Forensics Industry
Without any well-defined source of news for the AEC Forensics industry, AECforensics.com has been founded to fill the void. Scouring the internet for news relating to developments and news in architecture, engineering and construction forensics, links and articles are collected herein. In addition to visiting this website, you can stay abreast of the latest news by subscribing to the RSS feed in a news reader (for more about this, see RSS In Plain English), subscribing via Email (don’t worry, your email address is never sold or distributed to third parties, or used for spam), or by following @AEC4N6 on twitter.
If you have any suggestions for stories, would like any other information, or have any comments of a general nature, please feel free to contact me.
About Me
AECforensics.com is curated, edited and produced by Brian L. Hill. At least four generations of my family have been employed in the AEC industry as contractors, developers, consultants and real estate professionals. I first began my career in construction working for a firm specializing in AEC forensics working as a laborer assisting in intrusive/destructive testing (DT) of homes involved in construction defect lawsuits. After apprenticing as a drywall taper under the tutelage of perhaps the world’s greatest one-armed drywaller, I moved from the DT crew to the consulting department. There I was schooled in the fine art of forensic investigation and assisted in compiling and analyzing data, developing methods and scopes of repair, and estimating costs of repair. I spearheaded the design of a system for processing this data which was later implemented by a large firm headquartered in Santa Monica who has used this system to reach over “$500,000,000.00 in settlements” according to their website. For more information about my career, please check out my LinkedIn profile. Feel free to connect with me at BLHill.info or via Twitter: @BLHill.