Industrial construction refers to the building of highly specialized facilities such as factories or power plants where the production of goods happens. Commercial construction involves designing, building, and renovating structures built for human-traffic-based commercial purposes. The guide below discusses more differences between commercial and industrial construction.
Location
Commercial construction aims to build structures that serve people such as hotels, office blocks, and private schools. These are buildings where human traffic is the main attraction. Therefore, when choosing a location for a commercial building, you have to ensure that the location of the building is in an area with ease of access and flowing human traffic.
Zoning regulations design commercial centers close to the city center and residential neighborhoods to promote human activity within these buildings. Also, buildings in commercial centers are near each other so that you can easily access multiple services within the same area.
Industrial construction aims to erect buildings that will get used as production plants producing goods that the business will sell. Hence, space in terms of square footage is of utmost importance. Larger spaces are often away from the city center.
Industrial buildings are mainly away from city centers and residential areas for a few main reasons. The first reason is that land and space prices tend to be less expensive than in city centers. Industries are also located away from residential neighborhoods to limit disturbance to the human population in terms of waste, pollution, and noise certain industries generate.
One other key consideration for the location of industrial buildings is logistical access. Industries need to be in areas where they can easily receive raw materials and distribute finished products. Hence, locating industrial buildings near major transportation attractions such as major roads, rail, sea, and airports is prudent. This will reduce transportation time as well as logistical costs.
Subsistence Infrastructure
Commercial construction needs a centralized control system of supportive infrastructure comprising electrical, plumbing, and HVAC systems. The centralized system often has only one control point designed to meet the needs of the tenants.
Like commercial construction, industrial construction also has a centralized support infrastructure system but on a bigger scale than commercial construction. The reason is that industries have heavy specialized equipment for production, and the supporting infrastructure has to meet that demand.
Building Blueprint
Ensuring smooth foot traffic is the main design consideration of commercial buildings. If a building has smooth foot traffic, the customers who go to the building will usually have a good experience that will make them frequent the building.
Also, different buildings that serve different clients will have different interior designs and aesthetics. For example, commercial shops will have bigger windows displaying their products well, while hospitals will have wider corridors to ease the movement of patients on wheelchairs or stretcher beds.
The designs of industrial buildings mainly focus on efficient workflow and functionality. Effective logistics where coordinating, manufacturing, and distribution of goods have more priority than how a building looks for industrial buildings.
Also, industries store large machines, and the floor plan of industries has to ensure that interior spaces are large enough with bigger windows, doors, and corridors to facilitate easy storage of such equipment.
Project Management
Commercial construction usually does not require any specialized skills to execute. General contractors source for suppliers and subcontractors to do the work. Although the designs of structures may vary, the materials to build malls, office complexes, or hospitals are the same.
Industrial construction is more technical and often requires more specialized skills than commercial construction. Builders require to have the knowledge of large customized equipment installation, assembling of machines on-site, and custom fabrication.
For any questions regarding industrial and commercial construction, contact us at
Cochran Construction Company. We will be glad to help.
