(English version)
AMA stands for Material and Work Specifications and is the Swedish industry standard for building specifications. AMA has a long history and was introduced in the 1950’s and it is continuously updated and republished on a three-year cycle. Between publications, AMA newsletters are regularly published to compliment and update the text to the latest industry standards. The chapters in AMA are written by experts and reviewed by industry professionals before publication. It is broadly accepted as the benchmark standard in Sweden and well anchored among owners, builders, consultants, and contractors alike. AMA is owned and published by Svensk Byggtjänst https://byggtjanst.se/
AMA is not a law or a building code. It is voluntary to invoke the requirements in AMA and up to the Owner to build how ever he wants as long as it does not violate a law or building code. However, since AMA is such a dominant industry standard any deviation from AMA should be clearly spelled out in the Bid Documents.
Structure
AMA is structured according to the BSAB-system, see https://bsab.byggtjanst.se/bsab/om . The first chapters 0-4 deals with large composite building components such as foundations, exterior walls, and roofs. These chapters contain requirements regarding tolerances, quality, and physical performance of the finished building. The remaining chapters B-Z contain detailed specifications for individual components and building products such as bricks, slabs, windows, finishes and many more. Together with the drawings the specifications form the contract work.
Specifications
The written specifications for a project are usually developed by an architect or engineer on behalf of the Owner. When writing the building specifications in accordance with AMA it is enough to include the paragraph heading in AMA for the entire paragraph text below the heading to be invoked. To understand what the heading refers to, one has to read the text in the AMA book. Sometimes the text is complemented or altered by the spec-writer to make the generic text more project specific or invoke more stringent requirements than what is considered industry standard. These additional requirements are then written into the specification as additional text under each respective heading.
The specifications usually fall into three categories; quality requirements, material requirements, and installation requirements. Material requirements are all physical properties of a particular item or product. It can be color, shape, durability, or other properties. Installation requirements describe how the work should be executed or installed. For example if a work as to be installed by a licensed or certified individual. Quality requirements are specific performances requirements on the finished work, such as water tightness, acoustic class or others, including warranties.