I sort of understand what you're saying but I'm struggling to agree with your examples in the comparison.
Even if you're working on a "project" comprising hundreds of near identical houses, there could be massive differences in the project constraints and their solutions for adjacent plots for any given selection of houses.
There could for example be a large tree with root protection zones on site where you would have to carefully design the foundations to account for this and their future effects such as heave due to volume change potential of the underlying soil.
My point is that there are many "hidden" problems solved by the design team during the project / design phase even for seemingly insignificant or simpler "projects". In my experience of analysing and designing hundreds of buildings for over a decade every project was unique and as such treated like a "project".
The project is the project side of the construction project and not construction side of the construction project =D
Typically, in construction projects, 90%[1] of the challenges are encountered and resolved in the design office by a multi-disciplinary, multi-organisation design team effort across multiple years...
[1] - Anecdotal evidence drawn from my experience as a structural engineer.
Thanks for linking augmenta. I was wondering if you know of other similar companies? I'm an experienced structural engineer who's just completed an MSc in Comp.Sci. I want to combine the two disciplines and so far I've only been looking for consultants who utilise parametric design (Rhino + Grasshopper).
Yeah,.the majority of the bank holidays in Scotland are different too and some of them aren't even actual holidays by law. As in some companies will continue trading as it's not restricted. For example, one of the companies I've worked for actually rearranged bank holidays throughout their various office to ensure that some people were working within the company during any holiday.