b'Construction briefingFOREWORD TO NEW EDITIONLemmy Kilmister, lead singer of the notorious rock band Motrhead, once introduced the bands next song as follows: This song was a big hit for us Ive got ten thousand copies of it at home. We feared that something similar would happen with the first edition of this book. Briefing is an important topic, but hardly best-seller material. So we were relievedand flatteredwhen that first edition sold out within two years. The book found its way to construction clients, architects, consultants, engineers, real estate developers and students across the globe. Thus motivated, we decided to embark on a new, updated edition.Those familiar with the first edition, will have noticed that we have changed the books title. The first edition was called Briefing for Buildings. Briefing, however, is relevant not just for building projects, but also for projects involving outdoor spaces, urban planning and infrastructure. For that reason, we have opted for a more generic title, Construction briefing, and subtitled it a practical handbook.In terms of content, the biggest change we have made, is the addition of more examples. We have paired photos of completed buildings with the requirements of the original briefing documents. The aim of this is to give readers an insight into the kinds of requirements one can find every day practice. Some of these are very broad and rather vague (e.g. asking for a symbolic and significant building that resonates with society), others extremely detailed and specific (e.g. stipulating that a rooms reverb time should be 0.6 sec in a furnished condition). Not all the examples are exemplary, but in general they concern functional requirements relating to the clients practical needs and refrain from dictating specific design solutionswhich is exactly how it should be. Another major change is a new chapter called What experts say. The first edition of this book was very much a reflection of our own ideas and we thought it would be a good idea to broaden the books perspective. So we have added a chapter of short Q&As with experts from both academia and practice. We are very grateful for these experts willingness to share their knowledge with us. We consider it the books most inspiring chapter. Last but not least, we cover several new topics: requirements management, requirements standardization, and user experience. Requirements management in particular is a topic that we were keen to include in this book. Although it is essentially the same as briefing, it takes a very comprehensive and systematic approach, emphasizing the importance of working with requirements throughout the entire project, and not just during the briefing stage. 15'