An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that have human occupancy or use as their principal purpose. Etymologically, the term architect derives from the Latin architectus, which derives from the Greek, i.e., chief builder.
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage systems, pipelines, structural components of buildings, and railways.
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the surface of the Earth, and they are often used to establish maps and boundaries for ownership, locations, such as the designed positions of structural components for construction or the surface location of subsurface features, or other purposes required by government or civil law, such as property sales.
Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps.
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructure that may have been neglected.
Construction is a general term meaning the art and science of forming objects, systems, or organizations. It comes from the Latin word constructio and Old French construction. To 'construct' is a verb: the act of building, and the noun is construction: how something is built or the nature of its structure.
A total station (TS) or total station theodolite (TST) is an electronic/optical instrument used for surveying and building construction. It is an electronic transit theodolite integrated with electronic distance measurement (EDM) to measure both vertical and horizontal angles and the slope distance from the instrument to a particular point, and an on-board computer to collect data and perform triangulation calculations.
The chain is a unit of length equal to 66 feet, used in both the US customary and Imperial unit systems. It is subdivided into 100 links. There are 10 chains in a furlong, and 80 chains in one statute mile. In metric terms, it is 20.1168 m long. By extension, chainage is the distance along a curved or straight survey line from a fixed commencing point, as given by an odometer.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is a global professional body for those working in the Built Environment, Construction, Land, Property and Real Estate. The RICS was founded in London in 1868. It works at a cross-governmental level, and aims to promote and enforce the highest international standards in the valuation, management and development of land, real estate, construction and infrastructure.
A triangulation station, also known as a trigonometrical point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity. The nomenclature varies regionally: they are generally known as trigonometrical stations or triangulation stations in North America, trig points in the United Kingdom, trig pillars in Ireland, trig stations or trig points in Australia and New Zealand, and trig beacons in South Africa.
A quantity surveyor (QS) is a construction industry professional with expert knowledge on construction costs and contracts. Qualified professional quantity surveyors are known as Chartered Surveyors in the UK and Certified Quantity Surveyors in Australia and other countries. In some countries such as Canada, South Africa, Kenya and Mauritius, qualified quantity surveyors are known as Professional Quantity Surveyors, a title protected by law.
Ircon International, or Indian Railway Construction International Limited (IRCON), is an Indian engineering & construction corporation, specialized in transport infrastructure. The public sector undertaking was established in 1976, by the Indian Railways under the Indian Companies Act 1956. IRCON was registered as the Indian Railway Construction International Limited, a wholly owned entity of the Indian Railways. Its primary charter was the construction of railway projects in India and abroad. Ircon has since diversified into other transport and infrastructure segments and with its expanded scope of operations around the world, the name was changed to Indian Railway International Ltd. in October 1995.
Building officials of developed countries are generally the jurisdictional administrator of building and construction codes, engineering calculation supervision, permits, facilities management, and accepted construction procedures.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to construction:
A building engineer is recognised as being expert in the use of technology for the design, construction, assessment and maintenance of the built environment. Commercial Building Engineers are concerned with the planning, design, construction, operation, renovation, and maintenance of buildings, as well as with their impacts on the surrounding environment.
Chartered Surveyor is the description of Professional Members and Fellows of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) entitled to use the designation in the (British) Commonwealth of Nations and Ireland. Chartered originates from the Royal Charter granted to the world's first professional body of surveyors. Chartered Surveyors are entitled to use "MRICS" or "FRICS" after their names as appropriate.
A drafter is an engineering technician who makes detailed technical drawings or plans for machinery, buildings, electronics, infrastructure, sections, etc. Drafters use computer software and manual sketches to convert the designs, plans, and layouts of engineers and architects into a set of technical drawings. Drafters operate as the supporting developers and sketch engineering designs and drawings from preliminary design concepts.
An architectural drawing or architect's drawing is a technical drawing of a building that falls within the definition of architecture. Architectural drawings are used by architects and others for a number of purposes: to develop a design idea into a coherent proposal, to communicate ideas and concepts, to convince clients of the merits of a design, to assist a building contractor to construct it based on design intent, as a record of the design and planned development, or to make a record of a building that already exists.
A time–distance diagram is generally a diagram with one axis representing time and the other axis distance. Such charts are used in the aviation industry to plot flights, or in scientific research to present effects in respect to distance over time. Transport schedules in graphical form are also called time–distance diagrams, they represent the location of a given vehicle along the transport route.
The Snake Projection is a continuous map projection typically used as the planar coordinate system for realizing low distortion throughout long linear engineering projects.
