For this reason the ILAFA (Instituto Latinoamericano del Fierro y el Acero) has undertaken the edition of this text on Steel Framing Architecture. For this purpose, it has opted for the translation into Spanish of a text published by the Centro Brasileiro da Construçao em Aço (CBCA), which has been adapted for use in the rest of Latin America.
We are especially grateful to the authors Arlene Maria Sarmanho Freitas and Renata Cristina Moraes de Crasto, as well as to the Instituto Brasileiro de Siderurgia and the CBCA, thanks to the efforts of its Executive Director Cátia Mac Cord Simões Coelho.
This text will be complemented by another on Steel Framing: Engineering, which will also be published by ILAFA, and with which it will form a conceptual unit. In this regard, most of the technical terms and synonyms used in different countries are defined in Chapter 1 of the Engineering Manual.