An investigation of the viability of assessment of safety risks at design of building facilities in Australia

Previous research has identified the design aspect of building facilities as being a significant contributing factor to construction site accidents. The aim of this research is to understand the perception, current practices, barriers and impacts of identifying, assessing and mitigating safety risks at design of building projects. Postal surveys were conducted in Sydney Australia. The research results showed that identifying, assessing and mitigating safety risks at design stage of building facilities is a viable, valuable and beneficial concept. However, the majority of designe(architects and engineers) lacked knowledge of and had not implemented such concept/process. Impacts such as extended time and increased cost were discovered as main concerns faced by designers. Although many respondents were willing to take up the responsibility of addressing safety risks during design, it is evident that there is lack of formal training to address the issue. It was identified that the barriers of lack of understanding potential benefits, and inadequate skills and resources were the major factors precluding designers from carrying out assessment of safety risk at design stage, while liability exposure and the nature of subcontracting was not deemed a significant barrier in implementing the concept, as identified by other researchers