How is the Building Safety Act changing the way that engineers are working?

In the latest episode of New Civil Engineer’s podcast, Sam Harland, associate director in our London studio talks to editor Rob Hakimian about the new processes the act has introduced and how engineers are leading the response.

You can listen back here.

In the episode, Sam sets out the tightening of design competency requirements, the introduction of the gateway process and the creation of the Golden Thread for buildings.

“The Building Safety Act has a similar pattern to the Construction, Design and Management regulations in the new roles it has created and its impact on the industry. But rather than being about site safety, it’s about creating safe building fabric.

“It’s brought in new overarching duty holder roles and has also defined higher risk buildings, which are residential buildings that are seven storeys or more, or 18 metres or taller. The regulations have created a new process for the design of those buildings.

“You can split the three key changes into three elements. Firstly, there’s competencies, which means as consultants we need to demonstrate our competency to design those types of building.

“Secondly, the design of a building goes through a series of gateways at key points of the design, including at the planning stage, ahead of construction and at the end of construction. Detailed submissions are made to the new building regulator which are assessed and returned to make sure they conform.

“The third change is the creation of the ‘Golden Thread’, which is a pack of information that acts as a clear record of what’s in a building that lives with the life of it, so in the future if alterations are made it can be referred to, altered and maintained.”

Sam moves on to share the impact from a skills point of view, and how the profession is adapting:

“As an engineer from a technical perspective, we now need to employ more system thinking into fire design and really understand where our place is in the wider design, and understand where responsibilities lie for us and with others, and understand better overall fire strategies particularly for areas that have to be carefully designed and monitored for the life of a building.

“When it comes to upskilling, the IStructE has some amazing courses around fire engineering. But talking to peers and colleagues about their experiences has created a much less competitive culture amongst consultants. We’re working together much more closely and sharing knowledge through roundtables, learning from others and reflecting.

Sam also provides insight on how implementation of the Act has been difficult and how it might drive the future of the sector.

“The act is a great bit of legislation which is really positive for building safety, but right now the execution has been tricky to deal with, largely due to delays in the regulator returning comments. The industry at the moment is struggling with programming that into construction, because we have this jeopardy with the regulator.

“It’s no longer possible to get advice during the design period, you have to submit your designs and they return their assessment with comments. It puts lots of pressure on that gateway to submission, and there are delays with comments coming back. If it doesn’t get approved, you are back to the drawing board. We all want safe buildings, but what it does is it introduces a lot of risks for clients and developers on their programmes, and can have a huge effect on viability.

“We talk a lot about system thinking and really understanding where we fit in in the wider system. Working with fire engineers and architects, and understanding how they contribute to the design, and how we can share information that is best for the project. It ties in with all our other design aspects, sustainable design and building reuse. The built environment is going through a huge change at the moment, and the Building Safety Act is just a part of that. That sharing and understanding from each other is so important.”