| dc.description.abstract | Taiwan is located at the boundary between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate.With more than 33 active faults in the main island, Taiwan is an earthquake prone region. Earthquakes often cause irreversible damage to the structures and pose serious threats to the public. Asides from the structural design to improve the earthquake resistance level of the buildings, the construction quality is also an important part. It is an urgent and essential issue to improve the construction quality of buildings for the government. New Taipei City has an estimated population of 4 million within 2,503 square kilometers. Its number and the scale of architectural projects is the top of the five major cities in Taiwan for years.
Article 56 of the Construction Law clearly stated that for the parts of construction works that require inspection, the municipal or county (city) competent authority of construction shall, upon approval of the construction plan, designate the constructor together with the supervisor to submit reports in time before to continue construction, and the competent authority of construction may carry out inspection at any time. The mechanism for inspections do exist, however, the authority does not have enough administrative and adequate human resources to conduct thorough architectural construction inspections. The existing mechanism seems to be insufficient to ensure the construction quality of buildings. Gradually, the ideas of commissioning trusted third party by the authority to ensure the construction quality are generated. The means of the commissioning may be carried out by requesting professional associations to appoint experts who are competent, capable, and willing to take responsibility for the inspections with professional signing and sealing.
The feasibility study is conducted through collecting and analyzing data including the existing building regulations and inspecting systems in Taiwan and Japan, the construction works inspection process of the construction works of the New Taipei City Government Works Bureau, and the mechanism and experiences of commissioning the New Taipei City Architects Association in issuing building licenses. Supplemented by questionnaires, the study includes the comments and opinions of the current inspection process and outsourcing inspections from relevant professional practitioners.
With above mentioned analysis and discussions, the feasibility study of outsourcing trusted third party for architectural construction site inspection in New Taipei City is conducted. The goal of this study is to achieve a win-win situation by improving construction quality of buildings and ensuring the safety of the buildings for the public without jeopardizing the administrative efficiency. | en_US |