B strategy

The construction industry covers a wide range of activities, hazards, materials, techniques, employment patterns and contractual arrangements. In these circumstances, good management of construction projects from concept through to demolition is essential if health and safety standards are to improve. The opportunity to reduce health and safety risks through design is much greater early in the project. Often this can be achieved at the outline design strategy stage. This is identified in the hazard and risk elimination graph below. The challenge is to effectively evaluate, eliminate or reduce risk when the design is at this early stage and very little has been decided. It is therefore an interactive process.

It is essential to assess the risk not just 'do' a risk assessment

This is best done as a team exercise involving the main stakeholders including construction and supply-chain representatives wherever possible.

There are a number of techniques and tools that have been developed to help designers with this work including. (click on the text to view)

Rethinking Construction questionnaire

Safety in Design checklist

CHAIR 1 evaluation

There are many occupational health issues affecting construction workers – the main ones include:

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD's)
Eg bad backs, strains, repetitive strain injuries.

Asbestosis
with 3000 fatalities a year, many of whom have been construction workers

Noise induced hearing loss
caused by one off exposure to a loud noise or, more commonly, long term exposure to high levels of noise typically found on construction sites

Hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS)
Caused mainly by vibrating tools and equipment with 3000 cases reported each year.

Dermatitis
A skin complaint caused by exposure to wet concrete or mortar, with plasterers, bricklayers and concrete layers at particular risk (Building, 2003).

Major health risks	Typical design action to remove /reduce risk	Design example
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD's) click for info	Remove / reduce the need for manual handling	Consider off site production. Increase the size of units to discourage manual handling
Vibration click for info	Remove / reduce the need for excessive use of hydraulic breakers or percussion tools	Consider construction solutions that require little or no concrete 'break out'
Dermatitis click for info	Prevent the use of substances hazardous to health	Specify cements that do not use chromate^IV and paints that are water-based
Noise click for info	Remove / reduce the need for excessive blasting or grinding	Consider construction techniques that require little or no long term exposure to noise
Respiratory click for info	Remove / reduce the need for excessive concrete cutting and toxic substances	Work within COSHH guidelines

The table below shows the main health risks that construction site workers face in their day to day activities, typical design actions that remove or reduce the risk and specific examples for designing out the risks .

These tools may not fit your project completely and should be used as a guide to develop your own procedures. It is important to ensure that this does not become a theoretical exercise.

A hazard is something with the potential to cause harm, whereas a risk is the likelihood of the potential for harm. Designer action is firstly to identify the primary hazards and seek to avoid or remove the risk. If this is not possible then the risk should be reduced. Unavoidable, residual risks following designer action should then be communicated effectively to the Principal Contractor. At the concept design, project-wide issues and considered. Then system issues are dealt with at scheme design and elemental issues at detail design.

The role of the designer in a project is a pivotal one. The designer holds a central role regarding health and safety of the workforce and subsequent occupiers and users of the building. Designers are in a unique position to reduce the risks that arise during construction work. Designs develop from initial concepts through to a detailed specification, often involving different teams and people at various stages. At each stage, designers from all disciplines can make a significant contribution by identifying and eliminating hazards, and by reducing the remaining risks. Designers earliest decisions can fundamentally affect construction health and safety. These decisions influence later design choices. Considerable work may be required if it is necessary to unravel earlier inappropriate decisions, so it is vital to address health and safety at the very start.

It is assumed that the designer will have significant knowledge in the area of construction in which they are practicing. However for good practice the following three steps should be considered in all designs:

identify the significant health hazard

consider the risk which may arise, and what effects this may have on a project

review the design to eliminate the risk if possible, but if not, at least to reduce it as far as possible

It is impossible for the design process to eliminate all risks. What is needed is procedures which show that 'reasonableness' has been undertaken in the design. The HSE hierarchy of risk control uses the following points (typically 1 and 2 are designer actions and 3 and 4 are contractor actions):

Can the hazard be prevented i.e. by changing the design?

Can the risk be avoided at source i.e. items that need lifting should have lifting points?

Give priority to measures to control the risk that will protect all people.

Consider PPE as a last resort to protect workers.

The strategy developed will obviously differ from project to project and it is inappropriate to provide prescriptive guidance. D4h has produced the following case studies showing how designer action can reduce occupational health risks for construction workers to act as exemplar prompts to stimulate effective action.

Click on the text to view the required case study.

Further detailed guidance is provided in the D4h detailed design section.

A balance must be struck at this early stage between being too vague and trying to be too precise and narrow with the solutions.

Once risks have been identified it is important to record them in a health and safety risk register which can then be tracked throughout the process.

Solutions to remove or reduce the risks will become more concrete as the design process progresses.

This is an iterative process and the design must be reviewed through each stage to evaluate risk reductions and identify additional risks created by design development especially with the integration of value engineering into the design process.

INTRODUCTION

RISK CONTROL AND PREVENTION

DESIGNERS ROLE

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

HEALTH RISKS

CASE STUDIES

INTRODUCTION

RISK CONTROL AND PREVENTION

DESIGNER'S ROLE

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

HEALTH RISKS

CASE STUDIES

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Site and access

Building information

Building elements

As the project progresses the design will be become more detailed even at the outline strategic stage, from basic site information through to building elements. This is shown in the in the hazard and risk elimination graph below. Here design developments have been added to the original graph. Click on the text to view flow charts which aim at helping the designers with their design decisions.

Adapted from Gambatese, 2003

Risk assessment at this stage must be strategic and project specific. The design team most consider what type of risk evaluation should be taken and to what depth. At its most basic, hazard analysis and risk assessment is about looking around the site to see;

What could cause harm,

Deciding what you are doing to prevent it from happening, and

Asking is it enough?

This simple philosophy is how risk assessment should be approached, no matter how complex the project might be and even when the 'sites' itself does not yet exist. Hazard analysis and risk assessment is at the heart of effective health and safety management involving, as it does, the identification of work related hazards, and the putting in place of the safety measures necessary to eliminate or control the hazard, or to protect the site worker from harm. Hazard analysis and risk assessment can be extremely complex, if you are not careful, but a simple risk assessment that actually eliminates or controls the potential for harm within the project is the best approach at the outline strategy stage.

Project teams should consider developing a project risk register where significant risks can be added by team members at any stage to ensure that they are not subsequently overlooked. This should then be communicated throughout the project team and updated regularly.

The Process
A simple 5 step approach to hazard analysis and risk assessment will work for most circumstances, however your business environment may demand or dictate a need for more formalised methods to assess the risk, such as FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) or HAZOP (Hazard and Operability Studies) studies. The following design risk assessment guide flow chart will aid the designer.

The 5-step process prompts an assessor to;

Look for the hazards,

Find out who might be harmed,

Note the controls and determine whether they are adequate,

Record the findings, and

Review the assessment periodically.

The following key questions should be answered at the early design stage in the project.

Conception

Are risks identified and allocated to those best able to deal with them?

Does the contract specify occupational health standards and are these best practice standards?

Design

Do all members of the design team have polices, strategies and procedures for avoiding and reducing health and safety risk through the design process?

Has the design team demonstrated that it has the knowledge and competence to avoid and reduce health and safety risks through the design process?

How effectively is the knowledge and competence of the design team exploited through the design process to avoid and reduce health and safety risk?

Adapted fromGriffith & Howarth, 2000

Adapted from Foster & Partners

The designers' challenge is to develop the design, aiming to remove or reduce health (and safety) risks to construction workers, maintenance personnel and end-users the general public along with addressing the more traditional project drivers and constraints. The best time for these risks to be eliminated is at the outline stage of a project.This is a challenge for the whole project team and requires a team response.

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Click here to view a project concept, scheme and detailed design flow chart.

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HSE CDM -Red, Amber and Green checklists (this information is taken from the HSE CDM website )

Red, amber and green lists are practical aids to designers on what to eliminate/avoid, and what to encourage.

Red lists - Hazardous products, processes and procedures to be eliminated from the project.

Amber lists - Products, processes and procedures to be eliminated or reduced as far as possible and only specified/allowed if unavoidable. Including amber items would always lead to the provision of information to the Principal Contractor.

Green lists - Products, processes and procedures to be positively encouraged.

It is the client's needs that the designer is addressing, and the client may have concerns about how their needs are met (eg. an NHS Trust may not want its new physiotherapy wing built with heavy blocks!). Clients may not immediately recognise such potential for self-interest, or demonstration of best practice, but the designer can provide added value by bringing such issues to the Client's attention.

The designer also has the potential to incorporate some of these ideas into their specifications in their own right, or through liaison with the planning supervisor.

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D⁴h Building outline design strategy