SD1 - Safe Design Principles

Purpose

To ensure the principles of safe design are implemented with the design or redesign of aquatic facilities.

Description

Eliminating hazards at the design or planning stage is often easier and cheaper to achieve than making changes later when the hazards become real risks in the workplace.

Safe design can result in many benefits, including:

• More effective prevention of injury and illness
• Improved usability of an aquatic facility
• Improved productivity and reduced costs
• Better prediction and management of production and operational costs over the lifecycle of an aquatic facility
• Innovation, in that safe design can demand new thinking to resolve hazards that occur in the construction phase and in end use
• Greater visibility to pool space
• Reduction in visual barriers and ‘blind spots’

Definition

Safe design means the integration of control measures early in the design process to eliminate or, if this is not reasonable practicable, minimise risks to health and safety throughout the life of the structure being designed.

The safe design of an aquatic facility will always be part of a wider set of design objectives, including practicability, aesthetics, cost and functionality. These sometimes competing objectives need to be balanced in a manner that does not compromise the health and safety of those who work on or use the aquatic facility over its life.

Safe design begins at the concept development phase of an aquatic facility when making decisions about:

• The design and its intended purpose
• Materials to be used
• Possible methods of construction, maintenance, operation, demolition or dismantling and disposal
• What legislation, codes of practice and standards need to be considered and complied with

Duty of Care for the Design of Aquatic Facilities

An owner or operator of an aquatic facility has the primary duty under state and territory WHS legislation and regulation to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that workers and other persons are not exposed to health and safety risks arising from the business or undertaking.

An owner or operator of an aquatic facility that designs an aquatic facility that will be used, or could reasonably be expected to be used, as a workplace should ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the aquatic facility is without risks to health and safety. This duty includes carrying out testing and analysis and providing specific information about the aquatic facility.

A designer is a person conducting a business or undertaking whose profession, trade or business involves them in:

• Preparing sketches, plans or drawings for an aquatic facility, including variations to a plan or changes to an aquatic facility
• Making decisions for incorporation into a design that may affect the health or safety of persons who construct, use or carry out other activities in relation to the aquatic facility

They include:

• Architects, building designers, engineers, building surveyors, interior designers, landscape architects, town planners and all other design practitioners contributing to, or having overall responsibility for, any part of the design (for example, drainage engineers designing the drain for a new development)
• Building service designers, engineering firms or others designing services that are part of the aquatic facility such as ventilation, electrical systems and permanent fire extinguisher installations
• Contractors carrying out design work as part of their contribution to a project (for example, an engineering contractor providing design, procurement and construction management services)
• Temporary works engineers, including those designing formwork, false work, scaffolding and sheet piling
• Persons who specify how structural alteration, demolition or dismantling work is to be carried out

An owner or operator of an aquatic facility who alters or modifies a design without consulting the original or subsequent designer will assume the duties of a designer. Any changes to the design of an aquatic facility may affect the health and safety of those who work on or use the aquatic facility and should be considered by the person altering or modifying a design.

An owner or operator of an aquatic facility that commissions construction work (the owner or operator of an aquatic facility) has specific duties under state/territory regulations to:

• Consult with the designer, so far as is reasonably practicable, about how to ensure that health and safety risks arising from the design during construction are eliminated or minimised, and
• Provide the designer with any information that the owner or operator of an aquatic facility has in relation to the hazards and risks at the site where the construction work is to be carried out.
• A principal contractor is required for a construction project where the value of the construction work is $250,000 or more. The principal contractor is a person conducting a business or undertaking that:
• Commissions the construction project (the owner or operator of an aquatic facility), or
• Is engaged by the owner or operator of an aquatic facility to be the principal contractor and is authorised to have management or control of the workplace

The principal contractor has duties to ensure the construction work is planned and managed in a way that eliminates or minimises health and safety risks so far as is reasonably practicable.

Reasonably Practicable' in Relation to the Designer's Duty

The duty of an owner or operator of an aquatic facility is to ensure health and safety is qualified by what is reasonably practicable. Deciding what is ‘reasonably practicable’ requires taking into account and weighing up all relevant matters including:

• The likelihood of the hazard or the risk occurring
• The degree of harm that might result from the hazard or the risk
• Knowledge about the hazard or risk, and ways of eliminating or minimising the risk
• The availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or minimise the risk, and
• After assessing the extent of the risk and the available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, the cost associated with eliminating or minimising the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk

In the process of designing aquatic facilities it will not always be possible to clearly delineate who has responsibility, and in which circumstances, for the elimination or minimisation of hazards associated with the aquatic facility. The duties may be concurrent and overlapping.

Where more than one person has a duty for the same matter, each person retains responsibility for their duty and should discharge it to the extent to which the person has the capacity to influence or control the matter or would have had that capacity but for an agreement or arrangement claiming to limit or remove that capacity.

While designers may not have management and control over the actual construction work they can discharge their duty by consulting, co-operating and co-ordinating activities, where reasonably practicable, with those who do have management or control of the construction work, for example by:

• Applying risk management processes to more traditional designs and considering whether new or innovative approaches to design will eliminate or minimise risk and result in an intrinsically safer building or aquatic facility
• Providing information of any identified hazards arising from an unconventional design to those who will construct or use the building
• Providing guidance on how an aquatic facility might be constructed safely
• Carrying out the above in collaboration with those who have expertise in construction safety

A designer may be asked to provide health and safety information about a building they designed many years ago. The designer may not be aware of changes made to the building since it was constructed. In this situation, the extent of a designer’s duty is limited to the elements of the design detailed or specified by the designer and not by others.

Capability of Aquatic Facility Designers

In addition to core design capabilities relevant to the designer’s role, a designer should also have:

• Knowledge of work health and safety legislation, codes of practice and other regulatory requirements
• Knowledge of the RLSSA Guidelines for Safe Pool Operations
• An understanding of the context of the proposed aquatic facility
• Knowledge of aquatic risk management processes
• An appreciation of construction methods and their impact on the design
• The ability to source and apply relevant data on human dimensions, capacities and behaviours

Many design projects are too large and complex to be fully understood by one person.

Designers should engage persons with specific skills and expertise to be included in the design team or consulted during the design process to fill any knowledge gaps, for example a RLSSA Aquatic Risk Assessor.

References

• Safe Work Australia – Code of Practice – Safe Design of Structures
• Building Code of Australia - 2006. Australian Building Code Board.