Call for more building ‘aftercare’

Commit to a longer term relationship with your buildings, an industry initiative is urging designers and contractors.

Titled Soft Landings, the scheme aims to increase their involvement after handover of a building, to help users understand how it has been designed to work.

BSRIA, the Usable Buildings Trust and Darwin Services are promoting the idea to encourage a more “joined-up approach” based on feedback and post-completion evaluation.

Rod Bunn, project manager for the initiative, said: “Essentially it is a graduated handover, where project teams stay engaged after practical completion to hand-hold clients during the initial period of occupation, and to stay involved for up to three years providing professional aftercare.”

Soft Landings involves four steps: inception and briefing, pre-handover, professional aftercare, and feedback.

Mark Way, principal of Darwin Services, said: “We aim to create a process based on learning and shared feedback, enabling estate managers to work alongside the design and construction team from briefing to design and right through to occupation.

“To be successful, the process has to be embedded in procurement and contractual obligations from the outset, bringing more clarity to roles and augmenting the scope of work to be carried out by designers, builders, facilities and estate managers, and where appropriate the end user.”

A task group is producing a Soft Landings code of practice, and BSRIA will run a user development group to help early adopters.