Various consultants can take up to 10% of the construction budget, especially in large developed cities, where there are many requirements and it is difficult for one person to take into account all the nuances. Why do we need consultants? To analyze information. But why can’t the developer figure it out himself and make all the decisions? Let’s look at the book “Real Estate Every Day”.
Why do we need consultants
Today the amount of information in the world is measured by zettabytes (1 zettabyte is 270 bytes). For 2020, its volume was defined as about 50 Zb. This is so much that the amount of all the information we get in print from all the books and publications was only about 0.05% in 2020.
There is an abundance of information. But it doesn’t help us make decisions, it only adds time to researching each issue.
The number of lines in the cost table in a large development project is in the thousands. If you were to write an encyclopedia of development and examine in detail every issue that the project team needs to solve, from the choice of glass thickness to the type of bushes in front of the entrance, from the facade of the sales office to the design of advertising in the subway, there would be many volumes. But that’s impossible; besides, by the time you were writing this encyclopedia, the decisions would have already changed.
Unusual professions
This is why consultants are needed: they help analyze and prepare solutions for a variety of issues that a developer or customer simply does not have time for. Here’s a list of the most unusual consulting professions.
1. Parking consultants.
Know how to plan a parking lot so that its efficiency increases two or three times. Know how to put smart space occupancy monitoring systems – the red and green lights you might have seen in mall parking lots.
2. Playground consultants.
Some playgrounds can keep kids occupied for days on end. There’s always a cluster of parents and babysitters there. And there are beautiful, but empty playgrounds that are only good for booklets and presentations. The professionalism of a consultant is shown in his ability to make the playground appeal to children.
3. Site Planning Consultants.
They say that progressive public space planners let you plan them…to people. They just make a lawn over the whole area and let people trample the paths themselves. A few months later, they make paths in those areas.
4. Pedestrian and vehicular flow planning consultants.
For shopping centers, these are the most important consultants. Have you noticed that the escalators in malls are usually located so that you have to walk around an escalator or atrium on each floor? This is done to increase the number of shoppers walking past the stores. In office buildings, white-collar shoppers don’t ride the same elevator as the water delivery man and numerous bottles. Supermarket shoppers don’t encounter movers carrying crates of tomatoes at the entrance. Counselors help plan it.
5. Consultants for energy efficiency and carbon emissions.
In developed countries like Australia, the UK and the US, you can’t build buildings without energy efficient solutions, or it’s very expensive. And it’s not just energy-saving light bulbs, but whole systems of heat conservation, rainwater conservation, solar power generation and more. Apartments in London in zero emission buildings are already selling for more money than conventional ones.
6. Consultants on compliance with green building standards.
There are several international standards of green building: in the United States – LEED, in the UK – BREEAM, and in Russia recently developed a standard of its own – GREEN ZOOM. In many countries, national standards are stricter than international ones, for example in Austria. Consultants help to meet them.
7. Habitat transfer consultants for animals and insects.
Did you know that in the UK you can’t poison rats even if you have them in your restaurant? In Australia, one developer spent six months trying to secure the relocation of … an ant trail that environmentalists found on the property! And until he did this, he was not given permission to build several houses. Against this backdrop, relocating a commune of turtles from a construction site in Miami no longer seems like a big deal.
8. Landscape design consultants.
These experts will not only tell you how to make it beautiful, but also explain which plants will survive in the local climate, what is best planted to save on watering (and this will be looked at in green standards certification), and which plants do not get along with each other.
From the book Real Estate Every Day.
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