“Human Per Hour” reads the title of this document. The table assembles a list of construction work items paired with their respective “human/hour value”—the measurement unit indicating the amount of time spent on a unit task by one worker.1
In many industries, construction being no exception, measurability is a curious concept: seemingly objective yet in reality, quite malleable, open to interpretation, and altogether subjective. The quality of being measurable is associated with a certain absolutism that disfavors instability. The length of the Bosphorus Bridge, for instance, is measurable—it is 1,560 meters. Likewise, Earth’s average orbital speed is 29.78 kilometers per second. Once we step outside of the realm of unarguably quantifiable objects or acts, however, the notion of certainty is challenged and becomes vulnerable.
What does measurability mean, then, when the “human” factor is introduced? Or rather, what is the extent of measurability when the data we aspire to integrate relies on a multitude of disputable variables ranging from human error to psychology, performance, and power dynamics? In that regard, it becomes utterly confounding to read that on average, it takes 0.842 hours for a construction worker to pour a square meter of 500 kg, 2.5-4 cm thick concrete finish.●1 Or, that an average worker would install a meter of PVC rain gutter with 125 mm interior diameter in 0.3 hours.●2 At a time driven by data and efficiency models, has the desire for optimization of the workforce led us to eliminate the “human” aspect by presenting labor as a “market value” for construction schedules and pricing? This isn’t to disprove the existence of such assessments like this document; rather, contemplating on these metrics allows us to participate in questioning the very fundamentals and inherent subjective measures of the building industry itself.
