Soft Hazards

Appreciate I'm posting more than usual on here right now - apologies. Getting a lot of reading done right now and a lot of stuff is clicking. So throwing it all out in the hope it might help someone else out.

I've just finished reading ESSENTIAL CONSIDERATION OF ‘SOFT HAZARDS’ ON CIVIL AND BUILDING ENGINEERING PROJECTS which was brought to my attention by the author John Carpenter in another post/thread.

Its....its how I think or how I approach stuff summed up in a very good way for designers. For example....

He talks about scope of the brief (we throw that in our fee proposals), he talks about interface design and subcontractor design responsibilities (design approach stated within our fee proposal, elements covered within the GAs and Design Access Statement, exchange of information on subcontractor drawings and loading plans), he talks about CDM risks and our legal responsibilities (we add these to the drawings rather than buried in another document that site won't look at) and he talks about competency!

I've had this chat with Katarina before. I read documents like this and in my mind I know that bit of information is for the contractor, that goes on the GA, I know that's for the client (fee proposal), Building Control would need to see that information (so we tweak our calculation packages to suit), we don't double up information (that's a risk), we keep our templates up to date and we try and ensure the right person has the information they need. That's how I read stuff anyway.

There's some information in there that he's taken from references that he hasn't stated, the National Structural (Steel/Timber/Concrete) Specifications for example - I still think every engineer should read them, you learn so much. He talks about the requirements for Temporary Works consideration - I know that's a requirement for the principle designer in the Temporary Works code. What he does is just pull all these resources into a more manageable single source. Basically, if you're too lazy to read everything, start here.

There're so many legislative changes going on right now, its hard to keep up with it all - I've still got the raft of BSA changes to work through yet. And I speak to different people regarding this as well, and they're struggling to keep abreast of it all too.

I think the industry is going to struggle in the next couple of years. Specifically with existing buildings. The emphasis from Building Control is shifting to the designer 'prove you know what you're doing', and current practice stipulates a prescriptive approach to achieve that (Eurocodes etc). But I can also see the industry shifting track here away from that into a risk based approach.

Now if I'm adopting a new or a different approach from the norm, I know for sure that Building Control and the BSR aren't going to understand that initially and the fights ensue! They'll throw the book at me, I'll say the book doesn't work and we'll hopefully meet in the middle and I win?! My defence? Reading. Always has been. It's not my opinion, it's industry good practice I'm referring to.

If you're not reading the basics like the CDM Regs or the National Specifications, or i dunno... basic requirements for a building control submission for instance I think you're going to get left behind very quickly from the 1st October. Safety of buildings is still a legal requirement, it needs to come first.

Thank you John. Its a good read.

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#refurbishment #design #london #structures #structuralengineering #construction #building #structuraldesign #structure