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One of the International Building Quality Centre’s priorities in 2023 is to develop an international good practice set of guidelines that underpin the key elements required to frame risk consequence building classifications. Guidelines will also be developed to calibrate mandatory inspection regimes with the risk/consequence classifications.

It is important that finite inspectorial resources are allocated to areas that have the greatest potential to generate risk and prejudice to the citizen, be they occupants, transients or those that may be visited by harm that in worst case scenarios.

The classification system that is evolving is similar to the EN standard [1] leaning towards a three-tier system ie:

• Low Consequence ‘LC’,
• Medium Consequence ‘MC’, and
• High Consequence ‘HC’. [2]

“The consequence term is the technical narrative for the grading of the potential harm of a given building to generate a deleterious outcome. Hence a low consequence building classification will have a technical criterion that recognises that the type of building or potential use of the building would not in ordinary circumstances culminate in compromised outcomes.

High consequence building classifications on the other hand capture buildings that have the potential to generate far more deleterious outcomes in so far as they can pose a greater threat to life or limb or cause major economic prejudice.” [1]

As this IBQC project is still in its infancy, the coalition is not yet wedded to the three tiers; there is still further thinking to do before we settle on the grading but it is pointing in that direction.

In simple terms, low consequence buildings will be of a type and usage that poses least potential harm. Conversely high consequence is at the opposite end of the scale.

Permit issue

Good practice provides that the building official issues the building permit to correspond with the appropriate classification.

Mandatory Inspections

It is this writer’s view that inspections should be mandatory, and that the number of the inspections will correspond with the consequence loading in the classification. This however is not a universally held view. Many jurisdictions do not mandate inspections, others require a minimum number and invest the discretion to undertake additional inspections with the building officials.

The World Bank in their report “What role should risk based building inspections play in construction” stated:

“Risk based building inspections, as opposed to random untargeted inspections, allow governments to allocate resources where they are most needed without compromising worker and public safety…..risk based building inspections are conducted to ensure a buildings structural safety, fire safety, worker safety, and public safety but in a more efficient manner. Having fewer inspections for less risky buildings lowers costs without compromising safety and, increasing flexibility and enabling inspections to move away from random and phased inspections” [3]

By way of reiteration it is submitted that there should be a mandatory inspection regime, but the number of inspections should be ‘right weight’. Right weight will be determined by the consequence profile.

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For example a LC building is likely to include let’s say, a 4 wall, slab, single roof, non-controversial warehouse usage and application may only require:

• Concrete poor
• Possibly frame
• And final inspection

So effectively 3 mandatory inspections.

But an 80-story residential high rise, that may find itself classified as high consequence category would have a much greater number of mandatory inspections, mindful of the building’s complexity and it’s potential in worst case scenarios to occasion much more harm to the citizen.

The concept of right weight is to allocate resources in a utilitarian sense if you will, to where they are most required, mindful of the fact that inspectorial resources are often finite on account of local government budgetary constraints.

The coalition is still resolving the classification regime and the demarcations that dictate that which differentiate LC, MC, and HC.

The next task will be to populate the demarcation criteria and once the classification guidelines table is completed the inspection regime will be tackled.

A key question will be at what stages to inspect in each category, for example:

• Foundation
• Frame and structure
• Commissioning of essential services
• Envelope
• Final
• Any additional junctures

There are some jurisdictions like the Australian state of Victoria that apply “a one size fits all approach to inspections.” Regardless of the buildings classification under the National Construction Code, the same number of inspections are applied to all. Under this construct, it could be argued that the inspection regime goes overweight on LC buildings like the said warehouse and underweight on MC and HC.

It is good practice in this writers’ view to have mandatory inspections, as in the case of Victoria but it is best practice to calibrate the mandatory inspection regime with risk profile and the consequence system.

The reason on this being appropriate resource allocation. Best practice does not dictate that one goes overweight on a LC paradigm and underweight on a HC paradigm.

‘Right weight’ is calibrating inspection with risk categorisation.

Peer Review

The coalition is also examining the role of peer review as good practice tends to dictate that there is the mandatory intervention of peer reviewers at key high consequence junctures such as the approval of:

• Fire retardant mechanisms
• Structural integrity
• Mechanical and electrical installation
• Lift functionality, safe egress, and evacuation capability.

It is recognised that higher consequence buildings that are attended by greater complexity and sometimes novel performance-based solutions will require a level of specialist expertise that is beyond that of a building official. So it is envisaged that the building official (like the medical general practitioner) will require the intervention of the specialists such as:

• Fire engineers
• Structural engineers
• Mechanical engineers
• Envelope engineers
• Mass timber engineering experts

The IBQC coalition members are:-

• Adjunct Professor Neil Savery, IBQC Board member and Managing Director ICC Oceania
• Dr Jonathon Barnett, pre-eminent international fire engineer of Melbourne, Australia.
• Dr Brian Meecham, pre-eminent international fire engineer, America. 
• Dr Vidal Paton Cole of Melbourne University, Australia.
• Dr Greg Chawynski of Massey University, New Zealand.
• Ron Hamburger, pre-eminent structural engineer, America. 
• Peter Johnson, international fire engineering expert and Arup Fellow, Australia. 
• Professor Robert Hurtle, pre-eminent proof engineer, Germany.
• Professor Robert Whittaker AM, IBQC Deputy Chair, Australia.
• Adjunct Professor Kim Lovegrove MSE, RML, Chair IBQC.
• The secretariate is provided by Australian construction and planning law firm Lovegrove and Cotton

The members of the coalition have been carefully chosen on account of their pre-eminence in their respective fields both locally and in some cases internationally. It is a multi-national group that encompasses a broad spectrum of academics, fire and structural engineers, building surveying, law, regulators (past), building and law reformers. We are aiming at having the guidelines completed by end of 2023.

This update and progress report has been written by Adjunct Professor Kim Lovegrove MSE, RML, chairman of the coalition. For further related articles, please see:

Risk-Based Building Classifications & Mandatory Inspections- The Key Benefits

This is a Lovegrove and Cotton publication.

Disclaimer

This article is not legal advice and discusses it’s topic in only general terms. Should you be in need of legal advice, please contact a construction law firm. The experienced team at Lovegrove & Cotton can help property owners and building practitioners resolve any type of building dispute.

References:

[1] The virtues of risk based building classifications and mandatory inspections. Kim Lovegrove, 2020

[2] https://www.phd.eng.br/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/en.1990.2002.pdf

[3] World Bank, ‘What role should risk based building inspections play in construction’, p1