5 insanely disabled access standards: 1 of 5 Braille Signage Growing acceptance around building law is key to improving compliance outcomes, but its a hard task to get acceptance when a law baffles logic, costs money, time and reduces our capacity to get the job done. Let’s tackle the top 5 codes that undermine all good intentions to improve project outcomes for people with disabilities. No. 1 Braille signage on toilet doors Braille signage ranks as the number one defunct access standard for reason of its prevalence and financial cost for no known community benefit. The science Best...
D-t-S or Performance Solutions - it's your choice! There has been a spate of misinformation about Performance Based Solutions and Building Surveyors overextending their field of influence in so far as the exercise of their duty. It’s important not to be bullied into doing something you just do not have to do. You might also consider legal action to recoup the costs and any delays for being forced to do something you DO NOT HAVE TO DO. Here's some useful links and info from the horse’s mouth:- The Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) Performance or Prescriptive Solution...
Access to Premises Standard or just Premises Standard is the abridged name for the Disability Access to Premises (Building) Standard 2010 document referenced within the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act of 1992 (DDA). The Premises Standard is intended to give greater legal weight to the provisions for disability access within the Building Code of Australia (BCA), and in practice, the Premises Standard mutually recognises the BCA and Visa Versa, meaning that compliance with the BCA is to comply with the DDA. Premises Standards History Immediately following the introduction of the...
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...
Workplaces often require areas greater than the AS 1428 access standard series and we're often asked about ramps within workplaces and Designers WHS 2012 duty of care which is reason for this guide note. The dimensions in AS 1428.1 were initially based on studies by J. Bails, Project report on the field testing of the Australian Standard 1428-1977 Part 1 and 2, Public Building Department of South Australia, 1983. It's important to remember that Bails research analysed the anthropometry of wheeled mobility users which is similar but different to workplace needs. While there's...
"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...