We now turn to the written materials that, together with the drawings, completely describe the design professionals intent with respect to the project. Historically, the term specifications has referred only to the requirements for the projects technical details. However, as Clough and Sears (1994) point out,
it has become customary to include the bidding and contract documents together with the technical specifications, the entire aggregation being variously referred to as the project manual, project handbook, construction documents book, or most commonly, simply as the specifications or specs.
One essential document in the project manual is the general conditions. The general conditions, sometimes called the general provisions, set forth the rights and responsibilities of the owner and contractor and also of the surety bond provider, the authority and responsibility of the design professional and the requirements governing the various parties business and legal relationships. These conditions are general in the sense that they can apply to any project of a certain type; sometimes they are referred to as the boilerplate, based on the somewhat erroneous notion that they are simply attached to the other documents with no further thought. As explained in the introduction to this section, many organisations have produced standard documents and these certainly include general conditions. A review of several such sets indicates that they provide much similarity of subject matter, despite various headings and topics. The New Zealand Conditions of Contract for Building and Civil Engineering Construction (Standards New Zealand Paerewa Aotearoa, 1998) include 15 sections, including such topics as the contract, general obligations, engineers powers and duties, time for completion, payments and disputes. One helpful outline of the numerous provisions in the typical general conditions is provided by Robbins (1996) as follows:
definitions and abbreviations
bidding requirements
contract and subcontract procedure
scope of the work
control of the work
legal and public relations
damage claims
laws, ordinances and regulations
responsibility for work
explosives
sanitary provisions
public safety and convenience
accident prevention
property damage
public utilities
abatement of soil erosion, water pollution and air pollution
prosecution and progress
commencement and prosecution of the work
time of completion
suspension of work
unavoidable delays
annulment and default of contract
liquidated damages
extension of time
measurement and payment
measurement of qualities
scope of payment
change in plans
payment
termination of contractor responsibility
guarantee against defective work
dispute resolution.
Note that all of these provisions relate to the relationships among the parties and the legal and??management issues attendant to the construction contract but not to the technical matters related to design. These latter issues come later in the technical specifications.
