Definition for building complexity

Building complexity

Exposure draft 2020

By John Woodside August 2020


General comment
I have spent a considerable amount pondering the proposal, and I have concluded that it is ill-conceived, not practical, will not work and does not achieve what I think it is trying to achieve. However, no guidance has been provided as to how it might be used in the future which makes comments somewhat difficult.

It appears that this is a bureaucratic attempt by those who do not know anything about designing buildings and the proposal to solve what is a difficult problem will make it even more difficult. In my opinion the ABCB need to step back look at the problem overall and then come up with statutory solutions as suggested below.

I have suggested 6 critical steps to solve the problem. They may seem extreme, but I believe extreme requirements are needed.

My comments largely relate to structural engineering, which is my field of expertise. However, I have a good overview of other practitioners involved in the building industry as well as contractors who build buildings with over 50 years’ experience.

Unfortunately, I believe the proposal for Building Complexity has been devised by those in the ABCB who have never spent significant time in designing or constructing a building. It is an attempt to overcome a number of very significant problems within the building industry. There are much better alternatives which I will elaborate below.

My background is that I have been designing buildings for over 50 years, and I have seen enormous changes in the building industry over that time. It is important for the building regulators to understand differences and why the building industry cannot and will not make the changes.

I would be one of a few structural engineers in Australia that has the experience to discuss these issues and to review them over such a long period of time. I know a lot of senior engineers of my age and experience have very similar views to mine in that Australia has just let the building industry do their own thing, and they have not done it properly. There will, of course, the building industry will say “it’s going to cost too much”, but it already costs too much with poor quality design in the longer term. One only has to review issues that are being reported in the press about poor building construction, and there are many more that are not being reported.

Following is my CV to indicate my extensive experience and standing in the structural engineering and building industry in Australia.


CV
John Woodside, FIEAust, F. ASCE, FICE, FIStrucE, Principal, J Woodside Consulting Pty Ltd.

John was educated in Melbourne, attended Melbourne University completing his degree in civil engineering in 1965. After post-graduate study, he worked in Melbourne from 1967 for 4 years with Milton Johnson and Partners before working in London for 4 years with a building contractor Taylor Woodrow.

He returned to Australia in 1975 and worked as a consulting structural engineer for John Connell and Associates and then Connell Wagner (now Aurecon) in Adelaide, from 1976 to 2000 and wide range of projects from domestic, industrial, commercial and institutional buildings including a number of high-rise buildings.

He commenced his own practice in 2001 as a sole practitioner and is the principal of J Woodside Consulting Pty Ltd. John has over 50 years’ experience in the building industry in Australia and overseas.

He was on the concrete standard committee for AS 3600 from 1986 until 1998 and is still on subcommittees associated with that standard. He was also chairman of earthquake standard AS1170.4 and is chairperson of the ceiling standard AS/NZS 2785.

He has specialised in the structural design of buildings and concrete buildings and is widely experienced and respected in that field. He has also had a very long involvement in prefabricated concrete both in the design and erection over the past 20 years or more. Some of his current projects include precast concrete for the Sydney Opera House and project managing construction of a $40 million hotel.

John was elected an Honorary Member of the Concrete Institute of Australia (CIA) in 2005 for his services to concrete and was awarded the Lewis Kent Award in 2011 by the Institution of Structural Engineers for his outstanding contribution to structural engineering in Australia. In 2006, he was awarded the John Connell Gold Medal by EA for his outstanding contribution to structural engineering and eminence in consulting engineering in Australia and overseas, as a Principal of Connell Wagner. He made a significant contribution to earthquake design and the concrete design in Australia.


History of the design of buildings in Australia in the last 50 years
I believe the ABCB needs to understand the history and the changes in the design of and construction buildings over the last 30 to 50 years to get a better understanding of the issues and problems involved.

When I first started as a structural engineer in Melbourne in 1967, projects were relatively small and simple in concept. High-rise buildings as we know them today were rare, nor did we have the technology we have today. Also, in those days all the state and federal governments had significant engineering departments which set the standards for the industry and much of their design was based on a lot of experience by very senior and competent engineers.

In those early days of my design life, we had what was known as ACEA scale fees for engineering and total fees for a building were of the order of 10 to 12% of the cost of the building shared between the architect, building services engineer, structural engineer, civil engineer and other consultants involved. Typically, a structural engineer would get around about 3 to 5% the total cost of the building in fees depending on the complexity of the project.

For private consultants, every council had a building surveyor who went through each design in great detail and made sure it complied with the various building acts and good design practice. That process no longer exists!

I then moved to Adelaide in 1977, and I was involved over a period up until 2000 in a number of high-rise buildings up to 20 stories and I probably design 10 of 15 of them in my career. Since 2000 when I first retired, I have worked part-time in the precast concrete industry providing structural engineering advice to several precast concrete manufacturers, and I see a lot of drawings from a lot of consultants on larger projects from around Australia.

By the 1990s scale fees had disappeared because of consumerism and by the time I retired first in 2000 structural engineering fees were of the order of 2 to 3% of the cost of the building, and they have now gone lower in the order of 1 to 2% of the cost of the building.

While technology has undoubtedly helped for consultants to stay in business, they have had to tailor their fees suit the money available and to stay in business. Therefore, they have reduced their services, have reduced their design effort and inspections on site and depend on computers to deliver a lot of their design. They often will not check or review their design, will not inspect their work during construction and hope they will get away with it and will often exclude various design packages such as precast concrete and post tensioning floors. It is little wonder we have had problems such as the Opal Building which I been predicting that that would happen for a number of years.

Because of my experience in design and reviewing architectural and structural engineering drawings for over 50 years, I am seeing some appalling designs over the past 20 years with no checking or independent review carried out. As-built drawings are not provided either.

I am currently reviewing a D&C project with non-loadbearing precast for a project in New South Wales, and I recommended to the precast concrete manufacturer not tender the job as the documentation was appalling and there was far too much risk them.

I am currently project managing a $40 million project where I insisted that the design and documentation be carried out correctly, and professional fees are approximately 6.5% the cost of the project which I think is reasonable. The design documentation will be fully checked and coordinated prior to construction. Old-fashioned but very appropriate and it saves a lot of problems during construction and into the future.
Specific comments
These comments apply to the Deemed to Satisfy (DTS) approach, which is usually very poorly carried out in Australia.

Regulators must therefore ignore Performance-Based buildings as Australia need to get the DTS approach right before we even think about Performance-Based buildings in any great detail. In my opinion, very few buildings will ever be designed that way in any case, and the professional fees need to reflect the additional work required.

It important to remembered that no designer is infallible and even with the checks and balances I am proposing it is possible things to go wrong but those should be minimised. These proposals will go a long way to overcoming many of the inherent problems in the building industry in Australia today and the significant cost to the community in the long-term which is far greater than the additional cost of more detailed design and documentation and construction for projects.

I do not like ticking boxes as proposed for the building complexity as it always leads to how designers can avoid a level of complexity by some sleight of hand or what I call bush lawyer designers. For example, if a building has 105 occupants, then designers will try and make sure that it is less than 100 occupants so they can lower the level of complexity by whatever means they can use. For instance, how do you define the number of occupants in a building anyway and for example in an office building by reorganising the layout you can quickly get more people in rather than the chosen number at the time of documentation.

In my professional opinion, there is a missing element called quality in all this discussion, and a need for excellence in both design and engineering, as well as building construction in Australia. When we are good, we are excellent, but when we are bad, we are horrible! By and large, the civil construction industry does not suffer these problems to the same extent.

Unfortunately building regulators including the ABCB and building authorities around the country are not skilled or experienced in the design and construction of buildings, and they need advice from those outside the ABCB with experience in the building industry to arrive at the correct conclusions.

It is also undeniable that the self-regulation of the building industry has not worked, and the only alternative is some form of sensible regulations that work. There is no point in having some ACBC document that allows loopholes and the legalistic designers who then exploit the loopholes and avoid what is required. That is what happened when the design of concrete walls in accordance with AS 3600-2009 was being exploited when it should never have been used, and it was changed in 2018 by senior group of structural engineers including the author in pressuring the standards committee and Standards Australia to make these changes.

One only has to look at Singapore where in March 1966 the failure of a 7 story building which imploded and this led to a significant tightening of structural engineering requirements in that country, and Singapore probably has the highest standard of structural engineering design in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_Hotel_New_World
Australia, on the other hand, has gone down a path where quality has been sacrificed for minimum cost over many years, and now this is the problems we are facing.

The requirements in Singapore include: -

• A mandatory inspection of all commercial buildings by all the designer.
• A two-tier professional registration system for engineers.
• The structural design of every building other than residential up to 3 stories has to be checked and certified by an engineer from a second tier known as an accredited checker. The accredited checker has to be employed by the client or developer or the builder/contractor from an approved list of checking consultants.
• Sufficient time has to be allowed for this approved checking


Previous Reports on quality and design
Previous reports have raised similar issues on quality and design, e.g. Independent Review of the Building Professionals Act 2005 by Michael Lambert in 2015 with its focus on the effectiveness of the building regulation and certification system in NSW; and the 2013 Engineers Australia EA Report on Defect Free Construction NSW and the 2005 report by the Queensland Division of Engineers Australia: Getting it Right First Time noted that poor documentation was contributing an additional 10-15% to project costs in Australia. All these reports have been ignored to the best of my knowledge by the authorities around Australia.
The Shergold & Weir Building Confidence report February 2018 raised concerns about the effectiveness of compliance and enforcement systems for the building and construction industry across Australia. And in March 2019 the BMF published its Implementation Plan for the recommendations in that report.
In February 2019 the NSW Government published the Opal Tower Investigation Final Report that raised concerns around the effectiveness of the regulatory environment in which we operate and made several recommendations to raise the standards of building design and construction. We now have other buildings such as buildings in Mascot with similar issues, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, and it has to stop.
Similar issues have been subject to detailed investigation in the UK, including effective scale, concluding that there are systemic issues in the construction industry that must be addressed. For details go to these reports:
• Building a Safer Future by Dame Judith Hackitt and SCOSS Alert of July 2018
• Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Construction of Edinburgh Schools and SCOSS Alert of February 2017
• SCOSS Alert https://www.structural-safety.org/media/502426/scoss-alert-effects-of-scale.pdf


QA
QA arrived in the building industry in Australia in the 1990s and was supposed to be the cure and the saviour of construction. In reality, it has not achieved anything like that, and one can question is whether it is appropriate for the building industry anyway. From my experience with QA it is poorly done, poorly understood and usually only paid lip service and often left to those who do not know what they are doing anyway. In other words, QA has become a hindrance rather than help to the building industry and is another example of ticking boxes.

In my opinion, there is no substitute for good-quality design, properly and adequately checked and periodic and regular inspections by all the designer of a building of their design on site. That is not the role of the builder/contractor or the building surveyor or the certifier and nor should it be. Not only that inspections need to be regular, and the inspection reports need to be properly documented, and they need to be sent to 3rd parties for review and acceptance.

I have seen far too many buildings where the designers never go anywhere near the building during construction and do not see the issues or understand how their designs will work as drawings will never show the realities of construction on site. Also, designers do not learn and will repeat mistakes because they don’t see them on site.

One only has to read CROSS (UK) reports see the same issue is also significant in the UK. www.structural-safety.org


Design and construct-D&C
Before D&C contracts, the architect took the lead and invariably was responsible for building project and was responsible for it to their clients. There were a lot of checks and balances, and the quality was good. However, they ran into problems and architects were sometimes not good managers of projects particularly as they got more complex.

Design and construct (D&C) became a very fashionable way of delivering a project as it is supposed to allow contractors to put their input into the design process. The other reason behind this was frustrated clients because their projects often took too long and cost sometimes exceeded the budget. With D&C, the builder/contractor took the lead, and they sign a contract with the client to build a project within a price. They employ the “designers” as well as all subcontractors. Everybody works for the “builder/contractor” under this system.

An unfortunate consequence is that we have eroded all safeguards on quality as we have no ability to change these within this system. The key strengths of the old system were the rules set by the Professional Institutions, and the power of the “Architect” to “hire and fire” his consultants if rules were not strictly maintained to his satisfaction. Now, everyone works for the builder/contractor. There are no “checks and balances”. Projects are becoming bigger and more complex. Project managers are now looking after the client’s interests often who are ill-equipped and lack of basic understanding of the design process and often the construction focus.

If you do not have a proper system of control for quality governance in design and construction, it will not happen; “Price and Programme” have driven it out of the system. We no longer have that. “Builder/Contractors” or contractors know that the system today allows other competing “Builder/contractors” to cut corners in standards to win the job and so everything has become “Price and Programme”, and “Quality” is shamefully neglected. The industry’s colloquial name is “Screw the Subbies” to win a job and make your money by driving down sub-contract prices used for tender. The grim truth is that if a builder/contractor prices to do a job properly, they will never win it. They must survive. They need work. They have no option.

Experience has shown that most Builders/Contractors (and clients) have absolutely no idea of the design process and while some of their ideas can be useful, by large all they are looking for is to cut the quality, take possible shortcuts and achieve savings by lowering the quality and all other savings they can find to win the job.

Therefore, the only way to get around this is to put on a number of statutory checks and balances in the design process and construction to ensure that a reasonable and acceptable quality is achieved and over which the Builder/Contractor has no significant control, particularly in design and construct arrangement.


Level of documentation of buildings in Australia
There have been many reports on the appalling level of documentation for buildings for construction that are provided by the designers to the construction industry in our race to the bottom.

With the advent of design and construct and novated contracts and other forms of contracts, the responsibility for the design has been taken away from the building designers and given to the builder/contractors who in my opinion to not have the experience or the ability or the understanding for the design of buildings. That responsibility needs to be returned to the designers. See the section on finance for projects.


Waterproofing
This is a subject in its own, and far more attention to detail and design and specification is required to achieve correct waterproofing of buildings. This should be subject to
an independent review by an external authority or checking engineer or architect.


Finance for projects
Unfortunately, many projects in Australia are produced by the D&C method as it saves the clients and developers money upfront.

From my recent experience with the financing for any project, financial institutions were not prepared to provide money for construction until they have a signed contract with a builder/contractor. This often means many clients do not have enough money to do the upfront design and documentation, and therefore they enter in design and construct arrangement with a builder/contractor who finances the money for the design and then has complete control over the design and the quality.

There needs to be a lot of effort to convince the financing institutions that they need to allow say 10% of what they will finance the project for the initial design and documentation otherwise they are going to continue to get poor quality projects in the future. Perhaps if the financial institutions took some responsibility for the building and the lending was tied to the final building that might change their attitude.



Checking and Independent internal checking
It is my experience that many structural engineering firms do not even carry out internal checking, and I often see drawings that have never been checked or reviewed by somebody independent within their firm. I.e. their risk management is non-existent. I do not know how they get professional indemnity insurance and is the time the insurance industry stepped in and said checking was mandatory.

Also, most building certifiers/building surveyors lack adequate experience in checking of structural documents.

In my opinion, all documents including computations, drawings and specifications relating to the design of buildings must be signed as checked internally by some independent from the original designer before submission of all documents including drawings and specifications to the building authorities for review.

Internal checking will need a statutory report or even a statutory declaration or similar stating that the all documents, including drawings and specifications have been independently reviewed internally in the organisation supplying the documents. The document should also state that the matter brought up in internal the review and how these have been resolved by with the original designer. For small practices and sole practitioners, this may require them to use other external consultants for their internal checking. The internal checking report will need to be submitted with the documents to the building certifier/building surveyor.

Step 1
Independent internal checking must be carried out on all projects, and no documents for construction can be submitted to the building surveyor/certifier until the design documentation including drawings, specifications and computations have been signed as being internally checked and reviewed. A copy of the internal checking document is also to be submitted to the building surveyor/certifier to show internal checking and review has been carried out and to provide the cost of the fees for this work. It is also should show how the fee has been spent. This will require a statutory declaration or similar. The fee for this work which was additional to the structural fee should not be less than 0.5% of the cost of the building.

Independent external checking (proof checking)
In my opinion, all D & C project should be automatically subject to external proof checking by an independent external engineer as set out below.

For smaller projects up to 3 stories, only selected projects should be subject to proof checking and for all significant projects above one story and above should be proof checked by an independent external engineer. The definition of a significant project would probably be a total building cost of less than $0.5 million. Probably the best way is to make sure that projects that are Design Categories 3 and above are subject to independent checking.

In order that proper effort and time is put into this, the professional fees for proof checking should not be less than 1% of the estimated construction cost of the building. The proof engineers report must also be submitted to the building certifier/building surveyor at the time of submission of drawings for approval and must include matters raised and how they been resolved by the original design team. Not only that independent external engineers need to be audited, and the results of their independent checking should be available in the public domain so that everybody is aware what the issues are and what the problems were and what was fixed up before construction.

Step 2
Proof (external) checking should be required on all D&C projects and all more significant projects and suggest Design Category 3 and above. Proof checking documentation needs to show how the independent verification has raised issues and how they have been resolved by the design team and the overall agreement by both parties and not the Builder/Contractor. Proof checking documentation report needs to be submitted with the other documents to the building surveyor/certifier. The professional fees for this work should not be less than 1% of the estimated construction cost of the building.



Quality of design and periodic inspection of buildings in Australia
The quality of design and inspection of buildings by engineers in Australia are almost invariably driven by owners, builder/contractors and developers demands and minimising costs and time, which has led to reduced fees for architects and engineers particularly over the past 30 years or more by a factor of about 5.

Architects and Engineers have, therefore, have had to tailor their fees to suit a regime where the minimum cost wins. This, in turn, has meant that design and documentation processes are minimal, changes to the drawings are often not recorded or recorded poorly on shop drawings and the like, and checking of the design and the drawings is often non-existent. Often inspections of construction on and off-site are not carried out, or they are carried out, those inspections are by those who are not experienced in this type of work or not connected with the original designer. All of this is a recipe for poor quality work and the problems that we are now seeing as well as the ones we cannot see. As a minimum as built drawings should be lodged with the council before occupation of the building.

As an example, on the Sydney Opera House for the project I was involved in the past, the structural engineers on a project who had offices both in Sydney and Adelaide would not inspect the precast in the factory and said they would depend on the precasters QA system. Fortunately, I checked what the precaster had prepared and found errors which were corrected in time before they were an issue. That inspection should have been mandatory in my opinion by the structural engineer responsible for the design.


Step 3
Regular and periodic inspections must be carried out by designers of the project for all projects including housing and written inspection reports must be submitted to the building certifier/building surveyor within 5 days of completion of any inspection. For all projects, at least one inspection per week is mandatory. For projects over $1 million or over 5 storey in height, all significant structural items will need to be inspected in this will require more regular attendance on site. Also, the building certifier/building surveyor may require additional inspections. Note for sites in country areas and the like in exceptional circumstances these may require varying inspections to suit. The fee for this work should not be less than 0.5% of the estimated construction cost of the building.


Structural engineering by other consultants
Another issue is structural engineers, excluding designer components out of their work. For instance, in NSW, they do not design non-loadbearing precast concrete, nor do they design posttensioned floors and get other consultants to subcontractor these items, which can lead to poor quality design. It is therefore important to make sure that all structural engineers are responsible for the overall structural design even if they subcontract out those services to others and accept full responsibility for design by others.

Experience of designers
It is also important to remember that all graduate designers, including engineers with a university degree, are not experienced in the design of buildings and structures. That experience only comes from working in the building industry over time. It takes some years to develop that experience and appropriate skills. It is therefore essential that graduate engineers do not take responsibility for those matters which are beyond their expertise or experience. In the author’s opinion, structural engineers need a minimum of 5 years’ experience to do designer smaller buildings and at least 10 years or greater for larger buildings.

Also, in the author’s opinion, Engineers Australia (EA) has largely abrogated its responsibility for the training of graduate engineers. Much of EA training is aimed at subjects such as project management which is suitable for engineers with 5 to 10 years’ experience, but graduates are not well catered for in the current training regime of EA.

Also, the current system of qualified engineers by EA is, at best, reasonably satisfactory, and at worst is very limited in what it tries to achieve. It merely allows an engineer with say 5 years’ experience to carry out all types of design, which in some cases they may not be capable of designing. It is, therefore, going to be necessary to provide significantly higher levels of registration so that engineers have adequate experience and background in structural design and construction of buildings.

State and territory authorities, local councils and relevant building authorities do not have the expertise, the time, or the staff to check engineering designs, and they depend on independent certifiers in most cases for their advice.

In this race to the bottom, we have ignored quality, and we need to change that urgently.

These are some of the things we need to do: -

• Registration of structural engineers: Registration of engineers should be in 3 tiers as follows: -
o Graduate engineer of 0 to 4 years’ experience who can carry out design and inspection of buildings but cannot certify any building works or structure. Also, graduate engineers must not be in senior roles of project management or acting as building surveyors and the like in this initial phase of their career.
o Engineers, reasonably experienced, with 5-10 years’ experience who can certify the design of buildings and structures up to certain heights, suggest 5 storeys and within their professional experience.
o Engineers experienced, with greater than 10 years’ experience who can certify all buildings and structures provided they are experienced and can design such structures within their professional experience.
• Design: Structural design and documentation and inspections must be carried out under the control of suitably qualified and experienced engineer or by graduate engineers or less experienced engineers under the control of a suitably qualified and experienced and registered engineer.
• Graduate engineers, limited experience: Graduate engineers with 0 to 4 years of experience can carry out structural design and documentation under the guidance of registered structural engineers but cannot certify any structural design. They can also inspect structural work on site under the guidance of the original designer who must be a registered engineer for the works involved.
• Engineers, reasonably experience: Structural engineers with 4 up to 10 years’ experience, can certify the design and inspections of buildings up to say 5 story and must be registered for this type of work and of course competent in design for these structures. They can inspect and certify works up to this level.
• Engineer, experienced: Engineers with greater than 10 years’ experience, who can certify the design and inspections of all buildings and of course must be competent in the design of the building and must be registered for this type of work.
Step 5
Set out the levels of minimum experience for designers required to design buildings which are far more than what is proposed currently. Only experienced engineers can be responsible for the design of significant building projects.


• Internal checking: All design, drawings and specifications and the like are to be initially coordinated with other design members of the project and then independently checked within their own organisation. Drawings, specifications, reports and the like are to be signed as having been checked before submission for external checking. Documents which have not been checked internally and noted as such, must not be checked by the external checker.
Where organisations or individuals do not have sufficient staff for this internal checking, this checking can be carried out by another external suitably qualified and certified structural engineer independent of the owner, developer, or the builder/contractor for the project.

• External and third-party Independent checking: Other than single-story housing and perhaps small projects were the value of the works is less than $50,000, all structural engineering design for buildings and structures is to be independently checked and certified by an external and independent checking engineer who is also a registered structural engineer and who is not the original designer. This independent checking will only be carried out after the drawings, and the designs are submitted as having been internally checked.
This independent checking engineer while being paid by the owner will be an independent entity from the engineer or designer, the owner and builder/contractor and developer for the building and probity reasons must have no direct ownership or similar relationship with the original designer, the builder/contractor, the owner, builder/contractor or developer. Not only that the owner shall not direct the independent checking engineer in their role.

The independent checking engineer should be registered, and checking can only be carried out by a suitably qualified and experienced engineer who has to provide an independent certification that they are satisfied with the original design complies with the intent of the NCC, the drawings are adequate for construction and building or structure as designed is suitable for the purpose it has been designed for.

For fast track or staged projects, independent checking may need to be done in stages.

As noted above professional fees for this checking should not be less than 1% of the cost of the project.

• Independent checking engineers: This will require an approved register of registered independent checking engineers who would need additional fees to carry out this checking work. It may be that the certifying authority who nominates the independent checking engineer from a panel of checking engineers they have established, so there is total independence.
The independent checking engineer will need to provide a suitable certificate to the appropriate building authority that they are satisfied that the structural design complies with the NCC and good practice.

If the independent checking engineer does not accept the design initially, then it is the responsibility of the original designer or structural engineer to amend their design and drawings until the independent checker is satisfied, it complies with the NCC requirements and good practice.

The independent checking engineer shall also state the critical elements need to be inspected by the original structural engineer during construction. The independent certifier needs to be qualified and also approved for certification by an appropriate certification authority. They should also be audited regularly and at least every 2nd or 3rd year.

• Independent checking engineer: The independent checking engineer is to be engaged by the owner who has to certify that they have employed the independent checking engineer to the appropriate building authority and advise the fees that they will be paid for this work together with a statutory statement that they have paid the agreed fees for their work.
They must also provide a statutory statement that independent checking engineer is fully independent of the owner.

It is also going to be very important to insist that the independent checking engineer is paid adequate fees for their work, otherwise, the system will end up where again the lowest price will dominate. How that is determined needs to be advised, but probably a minimum scale of fees needs to be established even though it may raise the ire of the ACCC.

• Construction: Physical construction cannot start either on or off-site until approval has been received from the independent checking engineer that the design complies with the NCC, and the drawings and specifications are satisfactory. The independent checking engineer must be given sufficient time to carry out their task. Construction also cannot proceed until has been approval has been received from the relevant building authority.
The owner, developer, contractor, or builder/contractor must not make changes to the design or drawings for construction without formal written approval from the original structural designer and only after it has been internally checked.

Construction of any revised works can only be carried out after the redesign has been completed and drawings have been updated to clearly show the revised designs which have been checked and approved independently within the original design organisation.

• As-built drawings: All changes to the structural drawings and specifications and the like are to be updated before the building is to be handed over for occupation. This means the original documents need to be amended to show the changes. This requirement for as-built drawings is in addition to the original drawing and specifications originally submitted to the building authority for construction. The as as-built drawings and specifications must also be submitted to the appropriate building authority before the occupation of the building.
Updating of shop drawings and sketches and the like are not acceptable for as-built drawings, and all approved changes must be to the original, or any additional design drawings prepared during construction and these must be shown as upgraded for construction.

So that records are properly kept as-built drawings and specifications in digital form should be kept for at least a minimum of 25 years by the original designer and at least 15 years by the local authority or council as a record of the construction of a building. The statutes of limitation should not apply to as-built drawings. The availability of these drawings will be vital in the event of a major earthquake to ascertain the details of the building if it is damaged in an earthquake.


Step 6
As-built drawings and specifications and the like must be submitted before the occupation of the building. The original drawings must be upgraded to reflect what has been constructed and the use of marked up drawings, shop drawings, sketches and the like is not acceptable as a means of as built drawings. However, all shop drawings and sketches must be submitted as well is part of the as built drawings. Again, this will need some sort of statutory declaration that the drawings have been upgraded to suit what has been constructed on site. The fee for this work should not be less than 0.25% of the cost of the building

• Seismic design: The structural engineer must supply to the design team the design requirements for seismic design, including design parameters and the like for all non-structural components in accordance with the NCC.

• Periodic inspections: The structural engineer responsible for the original design shall carry out regular and periodic inspections of construction including inspection of all critical elements such as footings, columns and transfer structures and the like. They must inspect the building work at least once a week during construction on site unless agreed otherwise with the building authority and the independent checking engineer. They shall prepare a written report on each inspection.
They must submit at least monthly reports in sufficient detail to show to the builder/contractor, the building authority and the independent checking engineer that they have inspected the works and that are satisfied the works are constructed are in accordance with the approved design documentation.

This inspection work must not be carried out by an independent organisation who does not understand the design or has not been involved in the original design. This inspection must include all fabrication and construction work both on-site and off-site, including interstate and overseas work. It is unacceptable for a subcontractor to confirm that the works have been constructed in accordance with the drawings or shop drawings and such confirmation is not acceptable as a replacement for a detailed inspection and report by the structural engineer responsible for the design of the project.

• Confidential reporting: A confidential reporting system for all structural engineering is to be set up, such as CROSS-AUS which membership should be mandatory and free. All structural engineers and designers should be required to confirm that they have a membership of such an organisation and the confidential reporting authority is to report at least twice a year on problems that have been reported to them.
These are very simple and basic requirements that would go a long way to meeting quality work and overcoming many of the issues that we are now facing. This is what we used to do 50 years ago when I first started structural engineering, but with the squeeze on fees, much of this has disappeared.

Therefore, the total fees for structural work will be as follows: -

• Structural design estimated to be of order of 1% to 2% of the cost of the building which is negotiable
• internal checking not less than 0.5% of the cost of the building with a statutory declaration on the cost of the works and the works have been properly carried out including a detailed report for the certifying authority
• External or proof checking not less than 1% of the cost of the building if required
• Periodic inspections not less than 0.5% of the cost of the building with submission of regular and periodic inspection reports
• As built drawings not less than 0.25% of the cost of the building which will need to be submitted prior to approval of the building for occupation

What this will do it was sent a base level of professional fees with a lot of extra requirements but will improve dramatically the quality of design and construction on site. While this will add an upfront cost of perhaps 3 to 5% the cost of a building for all consultants, but the overall saving to industry and society will be of the order of 10 to 20% and will be far greater than this additional cost for the correct design and construction.

This new approach, of course, should not inhibit innovation or new systems or minimising costs provided it does not compromise quality of building construction or their design.


John Woodside
Adelaide August 2020