Construction Law Quarterly

Sand size versus beachface slope — An explanation based on the Constructal Law

Constructal theory and its applications to various fields ranging from engineering to natural living and inanimate systems, and to social organization and economics, are reviewed in this paper. The constructal law states that if a system has freedom to morph it develops in time the flow architecture that provides easier access to the currents that flow through it. It is shown how constructal theory provides a unifying picture for the development of flow architectures in systems with internal flows (e.g., mass, heat, electricity, goods, and people). Early and recent works on constructal theory by various authors covering the fields of heat and mass transfer in engineered systems, inanimate flow structures (river basins, global circulations) living structures, social organization, and economics are reviewed. The relation between the constructal law and the thermodynamic optimization method of entropy generation minimization is outlined. The constructal law is a self-standing principle, which is distinct from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The place of the constructal law among other fundamental principles, such as the Second Law, the principle of least action and the principles of symmetry and invariance is also presented. The review ends with the epistemological and philosophical implications of the constructal law.

Now in its second edition, Construction Law is the standard work of reference for busy construction law practitioners, and it will support lawyers in their contentious and non-contentious practices worldwide. Published in three volumes, it is the most comprehensive text on this subject, and provides a unique and invaluable comparative, multi-jurisdictional approach. This book has been described by Lord Justice Jackson as a tour de force, and by His Honour Humphrey LLoyd QC as seminal and definitive. This new edition builds on that strong foundation and has been fully updated to include extensive references to very latest case law, as well as changes to statutes and regulations. The laws of Hong Kong and Singapore are also now covered in detail, in addition to those of England and Australia. Practitioners, as well as interested academics and post-graduate students, will all find this book to be an invaluable guide to the many facets of construction law.

“Construction Law” is a rapidly emerging “capstone” legal field that over the past century has subsumed principles from many traditional fields of law and has contextually created new implied rights and obligations unknown to such traditional fields. Construction law’s emergence has been driven by the extraordinary modern growth in global construction activity, which in 2020 accounted for 13% (US$10.7 trillion) of the global gross domestic product and which by 2030 is expected to grow by another 42%. This growth in construction activities engages millions of firms and persons and has increased considerably the technical complexity and rapidity of changes in construction design, materials, methods, and dispute resolution. In recent years, the judiciary has begun to recognize construction law as a “separate breed of animal”.

Constructal law: Pleasure, golden ratio, animal locomotion and the design of pedestrian evacuation: Comment on “The emergence of design in pedestrian dynamics: Locomotion, self-organization, walking paths and the constructal law” by A. Miguel

A constructal perception of the electromagnetic field

Formation flight design via Constructal Law.

Through an assessment of the level of urban coherence in the city of Jijel, it was concluded that the city suffers from a lack of coherence in its urban components. Despite the existence of several laws related to urban planning and development, there are widespread urban violations and a significant prevalence of informal settlements in the city's urban environment. This is due to a lack of continuous monitoring by the relevant authorities and a lack of awareness of urban planning and construction laws among citizens. Some citizens even circumvent the laws. To achieve urban coherence in the city, citizens must adhere to legislative laws, and local authorities must impose strict penalties on anyone who violates or contravenes urban planning and construction laws. Additionally, it is recommended to propose projects that would give the city a coherence appearance, such as an urban coherence plan.

Constructal law and the design of pedestrian dynamics: Comment on “The emergence of design in pedestrian dynamics: Locomotion, self-organization, walking paths and constructal law” by Antonio F. Miguel

The Act of July 7, 1994 - Construction Law imposes numerous obligations on property managers. The most important of them is the obligation to maintain and use the building in a proper condition ensuring the safety of building users and third parties. Failure to do so may result in a construction disaster, ie, the building collapsing or parts detaching, which may result in property damage and personal injury. The article contains considerations regarding compliance with the provisions to redress this damage in the light of the provisions of the Civil Code. Claims arising from the contractual relationship between the manager and the owner of the property were also taken into account, including the possibility of a contractual extension of liability.

Constructal law considers the design as a physics principle and uses energy flow configurations (e.g., the flow of stresses through the structure) to explain and predict the time arrow of change and evolutionary design in nature. Here, constructal law is used to explain why swept flying wings achieve higher flutter speed compared with curved wings. This investigation of the aeroelastic instability through the lens of constructal law is a new concept that envisions the evolutionary design of aircraft. Nonlinear Aeroelastic Trim And Stability of HALE Aircraft (NATASHA) performs the aeroelastic stability analyses. NATASHA benefits from geometrically exact, fully intrinsic, composite beam formulation of Hodges combined with Peters aerodynamic model. Variational Asymptotic Beam Sectional Analysis (VABS) conducts stress analysis. The results shed light on how changing the geometry would affect the flow of stresses and stability. The findings reveal an analogy between the instability and stress flow strangulation in the structure. Stress strangulation is observed in both configurations, whereas the curved configuration has lower flutter speed and stress strangulation with larger magnitude. The swept wing configuration provides easier access to the flow of stresses with less stress strangulation and leads to a more stable configuration.

Construction Law and Management explains the state of design information appropriate to a given procurement route, and the need to identify risks and strategies for managing them. This handy desk side reference offers a comprehensive guide to construction law and management and is essential reading for anyone in the construction, architecture and engineering industries.

The author presents the historical genesis of the institute of construction law, with the purpose of presenting the reasons for its introduction in the first place, starting from Roman law to the first civil codifications that can be called modern. In this regard, this paper presents Roman long-term land leases first (emphyteusis and superficies). Superficies are considered the forerunner of modern construction law, because, among other similarities, it had almost the same purpose that is achieved today by construction law: to enable cheaper construction of buildings on someone else's land. Part of this paper is dedicated to the reasons for the revival of the institute of construction rights in the first civil codifications from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century (Austrian law, German law, French law). This part of the paper will also reflect the forms of this right (construction rights and superficiary rights) which occurred when the Roman law was accepted in the countries of the Germanic and Roman legal circles. In the same period in Serbian law, there was an institute of permanent right to use construction land in social or state ownership, which was in accordance with the, now abandoned, collectivist concept of property rights and which in some way satisfied the interests of individuals and society as a whole. Today, construction right is regulated by most of the legal systems in the region, but also by the countries of continental Europe. In Serbia, this legal institute has never been regulated in the form we find in comparative law, but its introduction was proposed by the preliminary draft of the Civil Code of Serbia, which, if accepted, will, in our opinion, be fully applied in domestic social relations.

The extraction of heat energy through ground source heat pumps (GPCs), powered by natural energy, is an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional energy sources and provides an effi cient source of sustainable heating, cooling and seasonal thermal energy storage and recovery. This study attempts to analyse the problems of legal qualifi cation of geothermal equipment. Bearing in mind the investment process and the subsequent use of geothermal energy sources, such as heat and cooling storage, energy foundations or reservoirs (near-surface and subsurface), it becomes extremely important to answer the question of the legal nature of the indicated devices. In particular, to clarify whether they fall within the concept of real estate expressed in Article 46 § 1 of the Act of 23 April 1964. – Civil Code, or whether they are construction objects within the meaning of Article 3(1) of the Act of 7 July 1994 – Construction Law. It should be emphasised that whether a given device will be qualifi ed as real estate, a construction object, or whether it will not have such a legal status, will determine both the decision as to the implementation of the investment (the issue of permits, investment costs, the time needed for the implementation of the investment) and the subsequent use of the device (the issue of tax charges on both the device itself and the energy generated with it).

Constructal Law: From law of physics to applications and conferences: Comment on “The constructal law and the evolution of design in nature” by Adrian Bejan and Sylvie Lorente