Buildings are permanent structures constructed in cities for a permanent effect of some kind. As in all Civilization games, buildings are one of the major sources of city stats and bonuses, and each type may only be built once in each city. Every non wonder building in CivBE comes with its own choice quest, which lets you choose between one of two bonuses.
Building construction and pre-requisites
Buildings may be acquired after certain technologies have been researched, and if the city meets the necessary pre-requisites. You can either use the normal city production process, and construct the building after several turns (depending on the 
Production output of the city for building construction and on the particular amount of Production points the respective building costs), or you can purchase the building instantly, by spending certain amount of 
Energy from your stockpile.
The pre-requisites of the buildings are divided into several categories:
- Terrain. This is the least important pre-requisite, since, differently from Civilization V, only coastal buildings depend on the terrain your city is built on, and coastal buildings in CivBE are few.
- Resources. Much more important pre-requisite; many buildings in CivBE can only be built if a particular improved Basic or Strategic resource is present within the workable territory of a city, or if your colony has an amount of a particular Strategic resource available to spend.
- Affinities. Civilization Beyond Earth introduces a new requirement for buildings - a particular level of a particular Affinity. Thus some lower-level buildings can only be built if a civilization has reached level 2 of a particular Affinity, while other high-level buildings require Affinity levels as high as 8 - 10. Their power is, of course, equally great and impressive. We could even say these are the National Wonders of a civilization.
At the same time, building chains requirements are absent from the game; this means you don't need anymore low-level buildings from certain type in order to build higher-level buildings.
Building maintenance
Almost all buildings, after being constructed/purchased, require Energy for maintenance. The amount differs, but is usually 2. Some buildings, however, 'consume' additional stats, for example 
Health , which is deducted from the total of the particular city (but of course, also affects the colony total). Also, some special buildings consume Strategic resources.
You can sell buildings for a small amount of Energy.