​The workers arrive early Monday morning atop a truck, all ten of them. They come from the pueblos. They appear to be so young, yet many are older than I think. It's hard for me to tell their ages. I am not of the same culture. These men are Maya. They have wives and children in the pueblos where they stay from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning. The rest of the time they work, eat and sleep in the place that I will eventually call my home.

​For four months they have been digging out huge boulders and removing top soil so that the pool and the house extension can be built. The boulders they haul are huge, sometimes a full foot around. They are extremely heavy and yet these little tiny fellows, not weighing probably more than 100 pounds, are able to haul them out of the ground. They stack them by size and then will use them for the foundation along with cement. The trees that they removed were cut into movable pieces and the small branches they saved for fires on which they cook their daily meals. Nothing is wasted. All reusable stone is saved for the foundation. Topsoil is saved for when the gardens will be installed. A small outdoor tub is used for bathing and the water comes from a faucet that they have managed to connect to the cistern. I am amazed by their frugality and their resourcefulness.

The skills they have are learned from others, not some school teacher or textbook. The foundations that they build look like pieces of art. The stones beautifully assembled similar to a jigsaw puzzle and then cemented into place. Their eye for piecing together the walls is amazing. Their professionalism unquestionable.

I am awed by how gracious, caring and formal they are. If I walk on the property they immediately grab their shirts and want to put them on. The culture is one of modesty. I cover my eyes, say "No hay problema, hay calor". and walk through. I greet them always and on my way out thank each and everyone of the workers personally. I am so grateful to them. They give up so much of their lives just to make a meager living and support their families. Yet, they appear to be happy. They joke and laugh as they work. Theirs is a well oiled team. There are no fancy bulldozers or equipment. Just them, their shovels and picks. Pieces of wood are used to pry up and remove rocks. Wheel barrels are run back and forth piled high with stones and dirt. Ramps are made from pieces of wood left on the property. Leftover large plastic containers provide support for thin pieces of wood for a few benches. During their breaks they eat and rest on the floor. One reads a newspaper, others chat during their lunch hour and some sleep. Lunch is around one when the temperature rises to an unbearable level. Work is best done early in the day before the temperature becomes searing. There is no shade in the areas where they work outside. Some work inside, removing the plaster from the walls so the channels can be made for the electrical and plumbing.

I wish I spoke their language, I would love to know about their families. I hope they are happy at home, that their children and wives understand how difficult their lives are during their laborious week. I feel so distant from them and yet I adore them. How can such a simple and hard life be carried out with so much elegance and grace? Maybe I am romanticizing and yet they appear to be incredibly happy while they are doing such hard labor.

At some point in time they will move on to another job, another site. I don't want to mourn that day yet. Other workers will appear to do finishing work, things that take much longer. But these men who endeared themselves to me, will not fade from my memory. They are special.

​-Ann Marie Brown

Skylights are a great solution for bringing light into the house, especially for homes in Centro where there are narrow lots that don´t allow for windows towards the neighbors.  However, with Merida´s sun, you also get a lot of unwanted heat that gets amplified with the glass.  There is a solution for this that is simple and economical: the malla sombra.  This product is normally used for greenhouses, which blocks the sun at different percentages (up to 95%). They come in different colors (white, beige, black, etc.) and can be easily installed.  There are several advantages to this product; one is that even though it blocks the sun, it lets the light pass through so you can take advantage of Merida´s sunny weather without the heat.  Also, it´s made to work in the exterior so it resists the sun and weather conditions.  Another benefit is, if you have an air conditioner in the same room as a skylight, it makes the room cooler which improves its efficiency, saving you some money.

ABSTRACT
The complexity and technology used in current projects have lead to a specialization of activities that results in a fragmented approach to design and construction, to the point that the design leaves all of the problems related with construction in the contractor´s hands. Different authors have reported that issues related to quality and delays in construction projects are caused by design deficiencies. Furthermore, projects overruns coming from design depict the most significant budget increases.

The fragmentation between the construction project phases began to be addressed at the end of the 1970s when the Construction Industry Institute (CII), in the United States, conceived the concept of constructability to describe the way that building design facilitates the construction processes. Since then, this concept has been implemented in different countries with the purpose of improving productivity and quality in construction. The experience and knowledge about this concept has resulted in the establishment of a set of principles that drive its implementation.

However, locally, there is no indication of the awareness or application of this concept. Therefore, this research´s objective was to determine the extent that design and design-build firms in the city of Merida, Yucatan apply the principles of constructability in the design phase of building projects, as well as to identify the factors that promote or inhibit the implementation of these principles.

In order to achieve this objective, a study was conducted that included the design and application of an instrument to measure the frequency that the practices of constructability were applied among firms that design building projects in Merida. A sample including thirty design firms was taken, at which the managerial positions were primarily interviewed. Also, the opinions of ten building contractors were included in respect to the frequency that the designers apply these principles. These interviews were also used to identify the factors that promote or inhibit the implementation of constructability practices.

Based on the information provided by the interviewees, the average application for each constructability principle was determined, with which the overall level of application of constructability was ultimately obtained. The results show that even though local construction practitioners are unfamiliar with the constructability concept, a relatively high overall level of application was obtained: 67% according to designers and 66% according to contractors. Furthermore, based on the designers and contractors´ comments, 24 constructability barriers were obtained. The most relevant barriers in the local context were the lack of a culture of design and planning in the undertaking of construction projects and the great informality with which building projects are developed.