Have the Australian Standards become a design Crutch? It's of great concern to us to see architects leaning on building codes and standards as architectural templates instead of their own imagination and creativity. Any decent self respecting species on the planet knows that diversity is the key to survival so what's the evolutionary advantage of standardising design? It didn't work for Mao Zedong or Stalin and there's no evidence that stifling evolution will work for us and there's every reason to motivate our designers to innovate solutions to today's lifestyle problems. When to...
Any stairstep falls or even falls on the same level in public building should be taken seriously for reason that they never occur in isolation and the probability of more serious falls increases with time. We usually become involved in stairstep falls claims following a fall or near miss. If you've had a stairstep fall or have a business premises with problem staircase or ramps then we advise to follow up with a stair audit to identify the problem and take advice on fall prevention and control strategies. It's important to note that stairstep falls are rarely the fault of person or...
"In the Tribunal's view what is required by the conflict of interest standard is a separation of the consultancy role and the certification role sufficient to satisfy a reasonably-informed member of the general public that there is no likelihood that the accredited certification might be influenced by the performance of the consultancy role and might lack the necessary objectivity."." Conflict of interest Justin Cotton, Partner and Head of Practitioner Advocacy at Lovegrove Solicitors has penned an article on the practice of acting as both consultant/advisor and as a public regulatory...