ABSTRACT
Ask any residential contractor or architect the average cost of building a house and they will give you a typical cost per square foot/metre. And then they will probably qualify their answer. “It depends upon the overall size/location/quality etc,” they might add. The same general response would probably apply to those professionals who concentrate in the commercial sector. In other words, they have their rules-of thumb based on experience, but they are sufficiently knowledgeable of the construction industry to realize that global unit costs are, at best, merely approximations based on average conditions. However, at the initial design stage, where detailed information about a future building’s
configuration or its probable fabric is often vague, such figures are likely to be the first indication to a client about a building project’s anticipated cost.
