ABSTRACT
The first 30 years from the start of World War II to the end of the 1960s tested the industry to near collapse. The war saw the growth of today's large engineering and construction companies and further lost ground for the architects. The 1950s and 1960s witnessed the trade unions over-reaching, with consequent inflation of construction prices to the point of an owner revolt. This led to serious attempts to improve productivity and delivery methods during the 1970s, which included flirtations with industrialized building techniques. From this time the chapter deals with all the factors driving change then and into the current period. The principle issues being: pressures to build faster, increase in litigation, growth of alternative project delivery methods, increasing project complexity, IT applications, a rash of rules and regulations, increasing globalization and sustainability concerns. Throughout the period the industry had to deal with multiple ups and downs – headlong growth after the war, the 1973–74 oil shock, and economic recessions as usual including a big one in 2007–08 caused in part by over-building in the residential sector. Then in 2020 a pandemic arrives with some unexpected consequences. Sidebars cover the final story of Lockwood Greene and details of the government experiment in industrialized housing design and construction – Operation Breakthrough.
