Chilean Construction Institute: building consensus in coordinating common issues

University of Chile, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, AvenidaLibertador Bernardo O'Higgins 1058, Santiago, Chile

^* Corresponding author: fpfenniger@uchilefau.cl

Abstract

The twenty years of research experience of the Chilean Construction Institute (IC) to promote “public and private efforts to improve quality, productivity and sustainability in construction” are presented in this paper. IC is a non-profit organisation formed by some public, private and academic actors: two ministries, two universities (Universidad de Chile and Universidad Católica de Chile) the Chilean Construction Chamber, three guilds (Architects, Builders and Engineers) and private industries (from the materials sector) formed this very atypical organisation back in the nineteen-nineties. The IC is a transverse association in which the actors meet freely to discuss issues that affect the construction sector, trying to find common proposals to contribute regarding the development of the country. Important actions have been developed, such as the Chilean isolation regulation; the social housing pathologies study; the National Construction Norms Council; the Chilean construction norms site; the public buildings case study; the CES - Chilean building certification system; the digitalisation of the building authorization system (on the municipal level); the Regional Seismic Code (for all Latin American and Caribbean countries) and others impossible to include here. This effort has proved to be effective and efficient in order to promote regulation upgrading and conduct studies that would otherwise be difficult to do. An interesting case is the thermal isolation regulation: with the support of the academic world, it was possible to agree a common starting point which, at the beginning, was strongly opposed by some actors. This updated regulation has proven that this public-private and academic joint venture is reliable and effective. Two cases are discussed in detail in this document.