Iris Marie Reuther (2019): BEST PRACTICE GESUCHT - Strukturen baulichen Qualitäts-managements im Hochschulneubau anhand exemplarischer Projekte in Österreich, Deutschland und Luxemburg. 1st reviewer: Roger Riewe, 2nd reviewer: Peter Schürmann. 392 pages, German.

Buildings that can remain defect-free and usable in the long-term are desirable for economic and ecological reasons. As a result, during construction quality management aims at both the prevention of building damage and creation of user satisfaction.

This dissertation examines how these two aspects of quality management are implemented in new public building projects via structural and non-structural measures at an engineering level. A case study is made of four new university buildings in Austria, Germany, and Luxemburg. The projects selected in these German-speaking countries are subject to similar climate conditions as well as the EU procurement law. In addition, each of the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, the HafenCity University in Hamburg, the Entrepreneurship Centre of the Technical University of Munich in Garching, and the Maison des Sciences Humaines of the University of Luxembourg in Belval/ Esch-sur-Alzette possess a reduced level of engineering and came into operation in 2014 and 2015. In comparison, it is not just through differences in use, university structure, regional practices and the respective national building legislation that a great variety in quality management is made clear. Of particular note here is the system of the Luxembourgian ten-year guarantee, stemming from Roman legal practice, a combination of measures to prevent building damage as well as an insurance policy. This work will first comprehensively describe the building practice in German-speaking areas.

The analysis of the four projects will generate recommendations in relation to structural and non-structural quality management measures, with reference to both structural engineering construction quality, particularly the damage-prone building envelope, and user involvement and satisfaction. The recommendations are primarily related to projects for university buildings, but are then generalised in such a way as to render them applicable for building projects in general. This dissertation will be concluded with a consideration of foreseeable changes in the building industry, insofar as they link into the aspects of quality management investigated herein.