An Architect's Guide to Construction-Second Edition

The second edition of this Amazon #1 best seller is a natural evolution of both the Consultant and Contractor perspectives about the building construction phase. Brian Palmquist has spent more than half of his forty years of professional experience “in the trenches” developing and using leading edge computer technology to make construction administration more efficient, more profitable and more enjoyable. At the same time, his systematic approach will improve the performance of design and construction businesses that prefer to operate using more traditional methods.

As an educator, he has used the ideas and approaches in this book to teach more than 2,000 intern architects, students and design and construction professionals about the simplest ways to effectively manage the complexities of construction.  “The challenge,” he says, “is to learn the enduring ways in this age of immediacy.”

This second edition continues to focus on the “enduring ways” that underpin the administration of building construction. It includes the first edition’s popular format of more than sixty new and updated “Tales from the trenches,” using true stories to explain the two objectives, two fundamentals and eleven elements of construction administration. Recasting the many Tales into just fifteen components makes the content more engaging and suitable for a focused or semester teaching approach, as well as offering a more accessible resource. The second edition uses more than 200 updated and clarified photographs, tables and figures to illustrate the Tales.

Each individual Tale is summarized  around its Principles, Attributes, Toolsets and Habits, what the author calls the PATH to construction administration.

The book’s Concluding Tales offer a simple method to evaluate where you or your business are on this PATH. Whether you administer design and construction using paper or electrons, or both, the PATH methodology will help you optimize your approach and construction administration content.

The Concluding Tales in the book and e-Book versions also embrace our “age of immediacy” by detailing specific techniques to manage construction in the cloud on any combination of laptop, tablet or smartphone.