Latest steel cost guidance now available

The second of a new series of structural steelwork cost guidance articles from AECOM, the British Constructional Steelwork Association and Steel for Life has been published in Building Magazine and is now available at: http://www.steelconstruction.info/Steel_construction_news

Entitled “Costing Steelwork”  the series of articles provide guidance on the key elements of costing structural steelwork.

Published every quarter they examine the key cost drivers for different sectors, provide a building type specific cost comparison and include a cost table with indicative cost ranges for various frame types.

The education sector is the focus of the latest cost comparison. There are a number of key drivers that determine why steel is used for many education projects, such as logistics, building form, fire protection levels and speed of erection.

Schools and colleges also require large column-free spaces for sports halls, laboratories, workshops and assembly halls. These facilities do not always fit within the standard structural grid of the rest of the project and consequently steel is the best solution to form these large spaces.

Highlighting structural steelwork’s many advantages, the latest cost comparison analyses a secondary school building in Merseyside.

Three framing solutions were costed for the Christ the King Centre for Learning in Knowsley; steel and precast hollowcore planks, in situ concrete flat slab, and a steel composite solution.

According to the study, carried out by Aecom, the steel composite solution had the lowest building cost of all three solutions as well as the lowest embodied carbon.