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The Concept and Practice of Performance-Based Building Regulations

IRC-IR-697 Oleszkiewicz, I.
November 1994

Preface This report is a brief summary of the research of the concepts involved in the performance-based building regulations, and their implementation in different countries. The research was conducted in anticipation of a similar transformation to take place in Canada. The selection of the countries was based on the fact that they have embarked on the transformation of their regulatory systems towards performance-based systems, and their legal framework and technological development are similar to those in Canada. Special attention was paid to the New Zealand reform, as it seems to be one that was executed in a very thougtful manner and because of the economical and political conditions at the time of the reform being relevant to the present Canadian situation. In reporting on New Zealand, an extensive use was made of the content of a paper by John Hunt, CEO of the New Zealand Building Industry Authority. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Canadian Codes Centre or any of the Committees responsible for the National Building Code of Canada.

Introduction In many countries building regulations have a pretty bad reputation as overly prescriptive and an impediment to the introduction of new technologies and design concepts. In a world of global markets, they have been criticized as nontariff barriers to international trade. At the same time people recognize the need for regulation of the industry whose products have a profound impact on society and usually outlast the companies that deliver the products. Changing to performance-based building regulations is viewed as a way of minimize the negative side of regulations while protecting the society in welldefined priority areas such as health and safety. In many countries some other public or national interests, such as energy conservation and protection of the environment, are also within the scope of building regulations. Building regulatory systems are enacted to protect the interest of the general public and are run by governments - central, provincial, state or municipal depending on the structure of a country's government and the authority of particular levels of government. The legislation, enacting a regulatory system, either states its general objectives or these objectives are assumed to be obvious. The regulations that follow the act, may either carry on stating the objectives in a more detailed way or the objectives may again be assumed to be obvious. The base of the regulatory pyramid are the enforceable, technical requirements, each of which has a particular objective (stated or assumed). The technical requirements may induce its objectives in one of two ways - by prescribing a specific solution or by imposing a measurable performance criterion. In some countries third option exists - certification of an evaluating government agency, which is empowered to rule on compliance of a solution with the intent of the regulations. The successful reforms of building regulations usually coincide with a broader change in the regulatory infrastructure and reflect a change in the philosophy of government regulations. The underlying performance concepts have been formulated decades ago [15], yet their application had to wait until they were found to be an attractive means to shape regulations suitable for the changed political and economical conditions. The new regulations need to be less authoritative, more responsive to the needs of the regulated, give more freedom to market forces, be more compatible with the globalization of economies, and be more cost-effective than the old regulations are [6-9].

Prescriptive and Performance-Based Regulations Adjectives "prescriptive" and "performance" can be applied to both a particular requirement and to a whole set of regulations, such as a building code. A prescriptive requirement describes means to achieve the objective in terms of materials and technology, while a performance requirement describes ends in terms of performance that will assure meeting the objective. A prescriptive code is composed with the presumption that the code users are interested in technical requirements only and not in their rationale. Such codes have a building element oriented structure, which simplifies the verification of compliance. The structure of a prescriptive code can be very complicated as the code has to cover a multitude of construction details and procedures. A performance-based code is composed with the assumption that the user needs to know the rationale for a particular requirement; this knowledge is necessary to come up with a solution that meets the intent of the requirement. The structure of a performance-based code is well defined, transparent, hierarchical and objective-oriented. One can trace a path from a particular requirement to the objectives of the regulations and tell the function that meeting this criterion has in meeting the objectives of the regulations. The prescriptive approach worked well in the past when the level of sophistication of the users of the code was relatively low and when construction technology and social needs were changing very slowly. Today, however, a prescriptive building code is a handicap both on the domestic and international scene. Rapid changes in construction technology, budgetary constrains and the need to open regulatory systems to foreign scrutiny in order to participate in trade agreements, require a building code that is flexible and transparent. These are natural attributes of a performance-based code. While it may not be entirely impossible to write a prescriptive code that meets most of the code users' needs, it would require costly and continuous efforts to keep up with changes in construction technology and economy. Performance requirement is a simple concept and it has been used in building regulations for long time. One can find numerous examples in any contemporary building code, including NBCC [9] (Figure 1). What is less understood and applied is performance approach in structuring building regulations and in the whole building regulatory system.

PRESCRIPTIVE: 9.28.3.2.(2) PERFORMANCE: 9.33.1.3.(1) Residential buildings ... shall be equipped with heating facilities capable of maintaining an indoor air temperature of 22C... Staples .... shall be not less than 1.98 mm diam ...

Figure 1. Examples of prescriptive and performance requirements Structure of Performance-Based Building Regulations Analysis of existing and proposed performance-based regulations developed in other countries indicates that an idealized model of such regulations would have a transparent, hierarchical structure and it would have performance criteria as its enforceable requirements. These criteria support higher level requirements, socalled functional requirements, which in turn support the objectives of the regulations. The functional requirements state, usually in qualitative terms, how the building or building element is required to perform in order to meet the objective. This nomenclature, used by the British, Australian and New Zealand developers of building regulations, may be inadequate as it relates to three conceptual levels of the regulations. In practice the number of levels varies as one follows different paths from the basic requirements to the enabling legislation, because of varying sophistication of regulations in different areas. One way of avoiding the straight jacket of the "performance criteria-functional requirement-objective" model is to call them all objectives (of different level). Also, not all the lowest level requirements of a performance-based code have to be of the performance type. It is the flow of logic and the structure that define such a code. A requirement with regard to stair dimensions is an example of a prescriptive requirement supporting well the functional requirement of safety from falling. Trying to substitute such requirements with performance criteria would complicate the code and would not serve any useful purpose. In some other cases, building science may not be advanced sufficiently to allow formulation of a criterion to replace a proven prescriptive requirement. Figure 2 shows an example of a hierarchical structure of a relatively simple performance-based regulation for which performance criteria were available.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS PERFORMANCE CRITERIA

Personal hygiene ... appropriate spaces and facilities shall be provided ... ventilation to achieve 3 air changes per hour for 15 min.

Safety ... adequate artificial lighting shall be provided ... illuminance at floor level shall be not less than 20 lux

Figure 2. An example of structure of a performance-based regulation Nordic 5 Level System In 1963 the Nordic Committee on Regulations (NKB) began a program to harmonize the building regulations of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Their first task was to develop a structure for building regulations that would be logical, transparent and compatible with the regulations existing in member countries. In 1978 the NKB published a report outlining such structure [10], comprised of five levels: Level 1 OVERALL GOALS - The statement of the properties of building, important from the point of view of society and individuals Level 2 FUNCTIONAL AREAS - Functional requirements of buildings and building subsystems that are to be attained to meet the Level 1 objectives Level 3 OPERATIVE REQUIREMENTS - Specific requirements in order that the principles laid down under Level 2 may be applied in the design and construction of buildings Level 4 VERIFICATION - Instructions or guidelines for verification of compliance Level 5 EXAMPLES OF ACCEPTABLE SOLUTIONS - Supplements to the regulations with examples of solutions deemed to satisfy the regulations The NKB level system has been accepted by the Nordic countries and by the UN Economic Commission for Europe as a helpful framework to approach reform of building regulatory systems.

One drawback of this scheme seems to be the assumption that it is always possible to go in one step from one level to the next. While it may be the case in simple situations, it may be impossible in great many others. To illustrate this reservation, lets consider an overall goal of life safety and a requirement that, under certain circumstances, there must not be an air intake into a mechanical ventilation system in a room where a fuel-fired heating appliance is installed. There is a good reason for such requirement (protection from depressurization of the room where the appliance is located, spillage of toxic combustion products and subsequent distribution of these via ventilation system), but it takes quite a few logic steps to get from "life safety" to the "location of return air ventilation intake". Yet if those steps are not explicit, the flow of logic is broken and the whole exercise is questionable. UK Reform Before 1985, the UK regulations were very prescriptive, covered subjects outside the interest of general public, and were written in legal language difficult to understand by those affected. It was generally agreed that the regulations were stifling innovation. In 1962 the Building Regulation Advisory Committee was set up to review the control system in the UK and to develop recommendations for the reform. In 1964 the Committee made general recommendations which set the pattern for debate about reforms throughout the next decade. The final push for change came in the 1970s when the Conservative Government decided that, subject to maintaining health and safety, regulations should interfere with enterprise as little as possible [6,12]. The new Housing and Building Control Bill was enacted in 1983 and the new regulations were issued in 1985. The new regulations [6,13] cover only the functional requirements and occupy 25 pages (21 pages in 1991 edition). The building designer can use any legitimate method to prove compliance, but in practice will probably rely on so-called Approved Documents. These documents consist essentially of a rewrite of the old regulations and British Standards or parts of them. Acceptance is virtually automatic when the Approved Documents are used. Approved Documents may give guidance in more than one form [6,13] : 1. Technical Solutions. They describe particular methods of construction and in general they contain the same material as the earlier Regulations 2. Alternative Approaches. These are virtually all based on British Standards and are not much different from the Technical Solutions.

However, they give a lot more guidance which may be helpful to a designer. 3. Acceptable Levels of Performance. These amplify the functional requirements of the Regulations, but sometimes only say the same thing in different words. Not all Approved Documents have them. In writing the Approved Documents the opportunity has, in many cases, been taken to update and expand upon the earlier Regulations. This approach goes against the original approach of the Conservative Government which favoured cutting down Regulations to the minimum and leaving the rest to designers. It seems that this approach has been found impractical, probably because it would leave Local Authorities with too little guidance as to acceptable standards. The principal Regulations have been cut to a fraction of their former size, but the complete package of documents increased well beyond the size of the earlier Regulations. Although Approved Documents are not the law, it is much safer for a designer to follow them than not. In the event of a dispute, not following the guidance may be used as evidence tending to show non-compliance with the Regulations. The system is working relatively well, however the designers seldom use the freedom the new regulations provide. Australian Reform Over the past two decades Australia has been developing a national building code that is acceptable to all states and territories and one that is performance-based. Until the late 1970s Australia did not have a national building code. The first national code was a typical prescriptive code based on the old local regulations. In 1980 work began to develop a new, performance-based and easy to understand code. In 1988 the Building Code of Australia (BCA) was published, followed in 1990 by an amended edition. Unlike the National Building Code of Canada, it is an actual code and not a model code. State variations are included in order to accommodate regional needs. This code is well structured but it goes only part way in achieving the objective of being a performance code. The process of replacing prescriptive requirements with performance ones has been continued and will be continued for long time. Fire regulations in the future will be [14] prescribed in three-level performance terms: Objectives, Performance Requirements, Deem-to-Satisfy Solutions. Compliance may be demonstrated either at the objective level or at the deem-to satisfy solution level.

The following is a summary of the characteristics of the Australian reform: There has been a strong support for the building regulatory system reform among the Australian building owners and the construction industry. The reason for this willingness to cope with change has been the perceived high cost of compliance with the old code and a low degree of predictability of the approval process, causing unpleasant surprises and delays. The objective of the reform is to achieve a performance code that does not overburden smaller contractors and owners with complexity that usually accompanies design flexibility in performance codes. This is to be achieved by creation of two parallel paths - a true performance based procedure, for large owners and contractors who can afford advanced engineering, and a "menu" of acceptable solutions, for those who can not afford or do not need a custom solution. The "menu" options will be assembled from solutions that provide acceptable risk level as evaluated using computer modeling. The Australian effort is impressive. Many organizations are involved, millions of dollars have been spent so far and many committees have been created, as shown in Table 1, compiled from Australian documents. The table does not show less important players and events. The high cost of the reform is, to large extent, the result of an obsolete regulatory system at the beginning of the reform. The Australian reform is well advanced, despite receiving decreased funding in recent years. New commitments have been made in 1994 for a higher level of activities, including a major effort in the Fire Safety area. New Zealand Reform Before the reform, building controls in New Zealand [15] were contained in more than 60 Acts and Regulations by central government plus bylaws issued by 213 local government bodies. In addition some 400 special purpose bodies, such as harbour boards, also had control functions relating to building development. In 1979 a research project quantified the economic impact of the plethora of building regulations with the result that the representatives of the building industry approached Government and asked to reform the system. Government set up a review group and in 1986 established the Building Industry Commission to develop a national building code that: would be performance based,

 would bind the Crown (government), would operate within a suitable legislative framework, and become the single focus of all government intervention in the control of all building activities. This implied inclusion of issues such as energy efficiency and barrier-free access, beside the usual health and safety issues. The first output of the Commission was an economic framework for future regulation, the essence of which was: question why government should intervene by regulation at all, decide if regulation was essential in the national interest, eliminate regulations where possible, rely on market forces where these were functioning, and if regulation was necessary, reduce the overall cost of regulation. To assess the above factors, a "shopping list" was developed of all the subjects that were currently regulated or the Commission thought should be regulated. These were then evaluated as to whether they were needed at all, whether market forces could achieve the same result and therefore the subject could be deregulated, or if the regulation should be retained, whether the current or potential means of checking for compliance with the regulation was feasible. This latter consideration removed many of the current regulations or bylaws, introduced because it had been thought to be a good idea at the time and yet it was impossible to police the requirement. Many of these situations arose from a "knee-jerk" reaction to some incident that the regulatory body decided "must never happen again". A conclusion from this "shopping list" was that market forces can be relied upon in some circumstances only, for example, when the regulation applied to commercial/industrial uses but not for the domestic situation. This meant a matrix of requirements vs. application was developed. A policy decision was made that the need for any classification system must be driven by the outcome of requirements, not as a fundamental starting point of the building code itself. The classification of buildings was based on the degree to which the user had control over compliance, or the extent to which the user relied on others for safeguarding their health and safety. Reference to the classified uses is made only when absolutely necessary, as in many cases specific provisions apply to most buildings. The emphasis on property protection and safeguarding the investment of the owner was revised totally. Instead, the objectives were safeguarding users from injury (by fire, flood or collapse), and the protection of other property i.e. not owned by the owner of the building in question. This change in emphasis over property protection did not go down well with the insurance industry, nor initially with the NZ Fire Service.

New Zealand used the five level structure developed by the Nordic Committee: the first three levels set out all the mandatory requirements, and the remaining two levels comprise additional information as aids to compliance and interpretation of the mandatory provisions. For each of the 35 sections of the code there are three mandatory levels: 1. Objective Statement of the social objectives which building must satisfy Statements describing the functions of buildings required to meet the social objectives Statement of the behaviour in use of building

2. Functional Requirements -

3. Performance The non-mandatory levels are: 4. Verification Methods 5. Acceptable Solutions

Methods of predicting performance and verifying compliance Examples of acceptable technical solutions

New Zealand has been criticized for this very formal approach, allegedly leading to superfluous and meaningless statements. In defense, it was stated that such formality exerts a discipline in code writing and making later changes, as well as in dealing with an alternative solution. Once the three mandatory levels of the code were drafted by the Commission and staff, working groups were contracted to develop the verification methods and acceptable solutions. These groups were given a brief and were paid for their input. The product of the working groups was revised and incorporated into Approved Documents. The acceptable solutions include detailed diagrams, which reduces the level of argument in the approval process. The disadvantage of a detailed solution is a tendency to regard it as the only solution, which may not be the case if schematic drawings were used, as in Approved Documents in the United Kingdom. The Commission decided that existing standards would not become law by being referenced directly in the mandatory provisions of the code. This was done to avoid confusion that different (and usually not stated) objectives of standards would introduce into regulation, and also to retain full control of what goes into the law. All standards, deem useful to the regulation, are scrutinized and if satisfactory, with or without modification, are referenced in the nonmandatory sections of the Approved Documents.

Durability provisions were included in the code to ensure that other performance criteria are achieved for some time after the commissioning of the building, so that the owner is conscious of the appropriate level of performance and will understand the need to make periodic inspections and maintenance. The code aims at ensuring that the hidden or unlikely to inspect components will perform as expected for reasonable periods. These are: structural elements on which the stability of the building relies - 50 years hidden services and fixings to the envelope - 50 years other fixings, the envelope or other elements with moderate ease of access but which are difficult to replace - 15 years linings and other fittings with ready access - 5 years The New Zealand experience with the reform and recommendations for potential followers can be summarized as follows: 1. Any organization set up to undertake the reform should have no other function i.e. not be currently involved in building controls, because the internal resistance against change may extend the reform period or even defeat it totally. The reform organization must be kept small and coordinate the input from others with expertise to do the detailed work 2. Ensure that the benefits of the reform can be sold to politicians (increased trade etc.) 3. The reform package should include not only the technical regulation but also the enabling legislation 4. Set realistic time frames, employ experts and pay individuals for their expertise in return for proper performance on time. Avoid using people representing organizations and do not insist on consensus outcomes. 5. Keep the building industry informed to avoid surprises when outcomes are presented. Initiate an education programme and guidance documents prior to implementation. 6. Attempt the impossible of obtaining adequate funding to avoid fluctuations dictated by funding, nor vital tasks like education curtailed. 7. Establish the scope at the start. This may be either terms of reference or the enabling legislation. Develop the legal hierarchy with the Objectives clearly evident at all times and available as a reference by all individuals working on the performance based code. Do not produce solutions first to satisfy status quo and then find a suitable objective from which they may spring. 8. Do not attempt to cover all possible situations when preparing acceptable solutions. One example should be sufficient. 9. Be continually aware of what other countries are doing. 10. Be prepared to amend your proposals as a result of your experience The new regulations, enacted in December 1991, bear some similarity to the UK regulations. The Act of Parliament is, however, much more detailed (116 pages

vs. 21 pages of the UK Act). The Act describes the objectives of the regulations and the structure of the regulatory system. The Act calls for making the building code (responsibility of the Governor General, by Order of Council) which prescribes the functional requirements and the performance criteria with which buildings must comply. The Act also establishes the Building Industry Authority (a Crown agency) which is responsible for preparation or approval of "documents for use in establishing compliance with building code". In their present form, the Act and the New Zealand Building Code contain the objectives and the functional requirements of the regulations and few contain any detailed, measurable criteria. It is only at the level of the Approved Documents where the technical details appear. Each Approved Document deals with a particular part (called clause) and is written mostly in prescriptive terms, with the view to be changed in future to performance criteria. Although each of the Approved Documents is grouping requirements corresponding to a particular Clause of the Code, the structure of the Approved Documents is markedly different from that of the Code and the Act. While the structure of the Act and the Code is objective-oriented, the structure of the Documents is building element-oriented. The structure of the Approved Documents seems to be chosen to better meet the needs of practitioners, but it remains to be seen if this is the case. The inconsistency of the structure of the regulations may compromise the expected benefits with regard to the equivalency approach (it may not be clear what objective is behind a particular requirement of the Approved Document), and the benefit of grouping the requirements pertaining to a particular building elements may not be entirely achieved because the same building element may be addressed in different Approved Documents. Canadian Perspective In the early sixties the NBC experimented with performance-based requirements. In 1965 Part 9 was published as a set of functional requirements alone, without any specific technical requirements. The experiment ended with little success because the requirements were unenforceable and as such were not used in practice. The users had to rely on deemed-to-satisfy solutions which in practice meant going back to the old regulations. This episode showed the need for a comprehensive approach to the code reform, and specifically, that the higher level qualitative requirements have to be supported by quantitative and enforceable requirements.

Despite that rather unsuccessful attempt, the idea of performance-based code has remained attractive to the Canadian code writers and users. The current (1990) Part 5 is written the way the old Part 9 used to be and it has been redrafted recently to be more specific. Drafts of the new Energy Codes show deliberate efforts to include performance requirements and to provide alternative, prescriptive and performance procedures to prove compliance with the Code. In the background of those activities, a continuos research of ideas and experience of other countries has been conducted. In recent years Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation commissioned a study [16] of various concepts of performance-based building codes and the impact of prescriptive building codes on innovations in construction. The Institute for Research in Construction (IRC) of the National Research Council Canada has a number of projects dealing with performance requirements and performance-based regulations. The IRC approach is comprehensive in that we are progressing technical tools for performance assessment such as computer modeling for fire safety and building performance, and at the same time we are developing guidelines and frameworks to be applied in the evolution of the codes. One of our efforts has been the initiation of an international task group on performance-based building codes. This group works under the umbrella of the International Council for Building Research Studies and Documentation, better known as CIB (which is a French acronym for Conseil International du Batiment). Building officials and researchers from around the world participate in the task group, coordinated by Mr. Robert Bowen, Director of the Codes and Evaluation Branch of IRC. The task group will: assemble a body of knowledge by surveying member countries, analyzing their regulatory systems and maintaining an up-to-date bibliography conduct workshops to discuss the information and to develop new ideas develop guidelines for the evolution of building regulatory system (including the code) towards performance-based system prepare reports summarizing the findings of the task group develop recommendations for future activities where appropriate We hope to capitalize on the experience and expertise of other countries to provide greater efficiency in supporting development process of our codes. Summary and Conclusions

The purpose of building regulations is to serve as a legal tool to provide minimum social needs with regard to built environment, without causing excessive costs to society. This objective can be achieved by regulations composed of prescriptive, functional or performance requirements. Any requirement of a rationally constructed set of regulations has a function in supporting the objectives of the act enabling the regulations. Regulations written with the performance approach have a well defined structure with a corresponding tree of partial objectives, supporting the enacted objectives of the regulations. Traditional building regulations were created with the prescriptive approach (even though they may contain performance requirements), in response to various pressures of the users (the regulated and the regulators). In this process they often deviated from the original objectives and their structure became quite complicated. Efforts were undertaken in different countries to rationalize their regulations, some quite radical and swift (England and Wales), some more moderate and extended in time (Nordic Countries, Australia, New Zealand). They all have one common characteristic - they apply the performance approach, which allows optimizing the regulations in the present political and economical conditions, both within the country and internationally. The reservation expressed towards the existing rigid frameworks based on the Nordic 5 Level System seems to indicate that a flexible, dynamic structure is needed, one that would expand in complicated cases (where it takes many logical steps from societal objectives to technical requirements) and would not be needlessly formal and repetitious in simple cases. One could envisage rationalization of an existing code in the following steps: extract the tree of objectives from the existing code analyze the validity of individual objectives analyze links within the tree objectives from the point of view of supporting the general objectives reorganize the tree of objectives into a hierarchical system - it may require some pruning or adding new nodes and branches modify the code so its tree of objectives is equivalent to the reorganized tree. The arrangement of the code does not have to follow the tree of objectives in the exact form; the arrangement of the code has to consider the needs of the users.

It would be beneficial to have the objectives included in the code, both for the current users (to facilitate equivalency approach) and for those who will continue to modify the code in the future. There are important advantages of such reorganized code, including: requirements can be of any type (prescriptive, functional or performance), with the transition to performance requirements facilitated by the clearly defined objectives the use modern mathematical methods (such as risk-cost assessment method) is facilitated by the provision of guidelines for the equivalency approach loopholes can be identified and eliminated computerization of the code, including development of expert systems, is facilitated by the transparent structure of the code priorities in research for the development of the code can be easily identified Such a code does not exactly meet the definition of the performance-based code in that it does not make the performance requirement and performance criterium its focal points. A more appropriate name for such a code would be "objectivebased code" since the hierarchy of objectives is the backbone of the proposed code format. The name would also better convey the concept to the less-familiar with the issue and alleviate apprehension that many have with regard to the real or perceived difficulties with the implementation of performance-type regulations. References 1. Hutcheon, N.B., "Codes, Standards and Building Research", Technical Paper No. 357 of the Division of Building Research, National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, November 1971. Ferguson, R.S., "User Need Studies to Improve Building Codes", Technical Paper no. 368, 4 p., 1972. Gibson, E.J., (coord.), "Terminology and Guidance on the Application of the Performance Concept in Building", CIB, Working Commission W60, The Performance Concept in Building, (document 9/4), December 1975.

2.

3.

4.

MacGregor, J.G.; "A Simple Code - Dream or Possibility?", In Conference Proceedings: Significant Developments in Engineering Practice and Research, American Concrete Institute, Publ. SP-72, Detroit 1981, p.199-218. New Zealand Building Industry Commission; "Working Paper 1: Philosophy of Building Control", April 1988 Garnham Wright J., "Building Control by Legislation: The UK Experience", John Wiley, London, 1983. Elder, A.J., "Guide to the Building Regulations 1985 for England and Wales", The Architectural Press Ltd., London, 1986. "Microeconomic Reform: Building Regulation", Building Regulation Review Task Force, March 1991, Canberra, Australia "Responsive Regulation in Canada", The Government Reply to the SubCommittee on Regulations and Competitiveness, April 1993

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10. NBCC, Associate Committee on the National Building Code, "National Building Code of Canada", 10th edition, National Research Council Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, 1990 11. The Nordic Committee on Building Regulations (NKB), "Report No.28: Programme of Work for the NKB", November 1976. 12. Law, Margaret; "Fire Safety Design Practices in the United Kingdom - New Building Regulations", Proceedings of the Conference on Fire Safety Design in the 21st Century, May 8-10, 1991; Worcester Polytechnic, Worcester, Massachusetts 13. "Manual to the Building Regulations 1985", Department of the Environment and The Welsh Office, HMSO, 1985 14. Grubits, Stephen J., "Fire Regulation Reform in Australia", Nordic Fire Safety Engineering Symposium, August 30-September 1, 1993, Espoo, Finland 15. Hunt, John H., "The New Zealand Experience", CIB TG11: Performance Based Building Codes, Meeting at Building Research Establishment, Garston, United Kingdom, 28 February - 1 March 1994

16. Hansen, A.T., Scanada Consultants Limited; "Innovation and Building Codes - A Study into Performance Codes", Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Ottawa, March 1991

Table 1. Chronology of the development of the regulatory framework in Australia

Year 1971 1980 Document Australian Model Uniform Building Code (AMUBC) Organization/Author Interstate Standing Committee on Uniform Building Regulations (ISCUBR) Australian Uniform Building Regulations Co-ordinating Council (AUBRCC) AUBRCC AUBRCC Building Regulations Review Task Force (BRRTF) Warren Centre Project Report and 2 70 Project Fellows Technical Papers (Fire Safety and Engineering) Building Regulations Reform Strategy BRRTF Expert Consultant Group formed to assist continuation of the Warren Centre Project Australian Centre for Building Fire Safety and Risk Engineering (ACBFSRE) Draft of the National Building Fire Safety Systems Code Expert Consultant Group Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) Building Codes Committee Project Reference Groups Affiliations State, Territory and Commonwealth Governments Local Government Ministers' Conference Local Government Ministers' Conference

1988 1990 1989

Building Code of Australia (BCA), first edition BCA, second edition

Local Government Ministers' Conference Commonwealth and local governments

1989

Industry, Code officials, fire services

1990 1990

Commonwealth and local governments Universities, CSIRO, industrial labs, consultants Universities, CSIRO, industrial labs, consultants, BOMA

1990

1991 1994 1994 1994

Universities, CSIRO, industrial labs, consultants State, Territory and Commonwealth Governments State, Territory and Commonwealth Governments Government and industry experts