Contribution of Dimensional Coordination to Construction Waste Reduction

The construction industry produces waste while consuming resources. To cope with the adverse effects of construction waste, attention should be focused on waste reduction opportunities. The consensus is that the architectural design decisions play an important role in construction waste minimisation. This means that any improvement in terms of architectural design decisions has the potential to enhance the construction industry's performance with construction waste-reducing benefits. To this end, this study aims at presenting an approach in construction waste optimization through dimensional coordination at the architectural design stage. To achieve the objective of the study, a residential project was chosen as a case. Finding out the most dimensionally efficient product for the bathroom flooring in this project was aimed. When determining the ceramic tile, the main criterion was to find out the most compatible size of ceramic tile which directly affects the amount of waste produced. Some calculations were made and the results of which were compared. The results show that the waste rate can be reduced to a dramatically low level when the dimensionally coordinated product is chosen for the given space. This result proves that dimensional coordination between building product and building dimensions has an important effect on waste reduction.