paper of performance based building regulations

8/4/2019 Paper of Performance Based Building Regulations

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http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

The Concept and Prac t i ce o f

Per for m anc e-Based Bui ld ing Regulat ions

IRC- IR -697

O leszk iew icz , I .

November 1994
http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/


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Preface

This report is a brief summary of the research of the concepts involved in theperformance-based building regulations, and their implementation in differentcountries. 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 onthe transformation of their regulatory systems towards performance-basedsystems, and their legal framework and technological development are similar tothose in Canada. Special attention was paid to the New Zealand reform, as itseems to be one that was executed in a very thougtful manner and because ofthe economical and political conditions at the time of the reform being relevant tothe present Canadian situation. In reporting on New Zealand, an extensive usewas 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 notnecessarily reflect the views of the Canadian Codes Centre or any of theCommittees responsible for the National Building Code of Canada.


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Introduction

In many countries building regulations have a pretty bad reputation as overlyprescriptive and an impediment to the introduction of new technologies anddesign concepts. In a world of global markets, they have been criticized as non-

tariff barriers to international trade. At the same time people recognize the needfor regulation of the industry whose products have a profound impact on societyand usually outlast the companies that deliver the products.

Changing to performance-based building regulations is viewed as a way ofminimize the negative side of regulations while protecting the society in well-defined priority areas such as health and safety. In many countries some otherpublic or national interests, such as energy conservation and protection of theenvironment, are also within the scope of building regulations.

Building regulatory systems are enacted to protect the interest of the generalpublic and are run by governments - central, provincial, state or municipal -depending on the structure of a country's government and the authority ofparticular 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 amore 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 technicalrequirements may induce its objectives in one of two ways - by prescribing aspecific solution or by imposing a measurable performance criterion. In somecountries third option exists - certification of an evaluating government agency,which is empowered to rule on compliance of a solution with the intent of theregulations.

The successful reforms of building regulations usually coincide with a broaderchange in the regulatory infrastructure and reflect a change in the philosophy ofgovernment regulations. The underlying performance concepts have beenformulated decades ago [15], yet their application had to wait until they werefound to be an attractive means to shape regulations suitable for the changed

political and economical conditions. The new regulations need to be lessauthoritative, more responsive to the needs of the regulated, give more freedomto market forces, be more compatible with the globalization of economies, and bemore cost-effective than the old regulations are [6-9].


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Prescriptive and Performance-Based Regulations

Adjectives "prescriptive" and "performance" can be applied to both a particularrequirement and to a whole set of regulations, such as a building code.

A prescriptive requirement describes means to achieve the objective in terms ofmaterials and technology, while a performance requirement describes ends interms of performance that will assure meeting the objective.

A prescriptive code is composed with the presumption that the code users areinterested in technical requirements only and not in their rationale. Such codeshave a building element oriented structure, which simplifies the verification ofcompliance. The structure of a prescriptive code can be very complicated as thecode has to cover a multitude of construction details and procedures.

A performance-based code is composed with the assumption that the user needsto know the rationale for a particular requirement; this knowledge is necessary tocome up with a solution that meets the intent of the requirement. The structureof a performance-based code is well defined, transparent, hierarchical andobjective-oriented. One can trace a path from a particular requirement to theobjectives of the regulations and tell the function that meeting this criterion hasin meeting the objectives of the regulations.

The prescriptive approach worked well in the past when the level ofsophistication of the users of the code was relatively low and when constructiontechnology and social needs were changing very slowly. Today, however, aprescriptive building code is a handicap both on the domestic and internationalscene. Rapid changes in construction technology, budgetary constrains and theneed to open regulatory systems to foreign scrutiny in order to participate intrade agreements, require a building code that is flexible and transparent. Theseare natural attributes of a performance-based code. While it may not be entirelyimpossible 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 inconstruction 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 anycontemporary building code, including NBCC [9] (Figure 1). What is lessunderstood and applied is performance approach in structuring buildingregulations and in the whole building regulatory system.


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PRESCRIPTIVE:9.28.3.2.(2) Staples .... shall be not less than 1.98 mm diam ...

PERFORMANCE:

9.33.1.3.(1) Residential buildings ... shall be equipped with heatingfacilities capable of maintaining an indoor airtemperature of 22C...

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 havea transparent, hierarchical structure and it would have performance criteria as itsenforceable requirements. These criteria support higher level requirements, so-called functional requirements, which in turn support the objectives of theregulations. The functional requirements state, usually in qualitative terms, howthe building or building element is required to perform in order to meet theobjective.

This nomenclature, used by the British, Australian and New Zealand developersof building regulations, may be inadequate as it relates to three conceptual levelsof the regulations. In practice the number of levels varies as one follows differentpaths from the basic requirements to the enabling legislation, because of varyingsophistication of regulations in different areas. One way of avoiding the straightjacket of the "performance criteria-functional requirement-objective" model is tocall them all objectives (of different level).

Also, not all the lowest level requirements of a performance-based code have tobe of the performance type. It is the flow of logic and the structure that definesuch a code. A requirement with regard to stair dimensions is an example of aprescriptive requirement supporting well the functional requirement of safetyfrom falling. Trying to substitute such requirements with performance criteria

would complicate the code and would not serve any useful purpose. In someother cases, building science may not be advanced sufficiently to allowformulation of a criterion to replace a proven prescriptive requirement.

Figure 2 shows an example of a hierarchical structure of a relatively simpleperformance-based regulation for which performance criteria were available.


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GENERAL Personal hygiene SafetyOBJECTIVES

FUNCTIONAL ... appropriate spaces and ... adequate artificial lighting

REQUIREMENTS facilities shall be provided shall be provided

PERFORMANCE ... ventilation to achieve 3 air ... illuminance at floor levelCRITERIA changes per hour for 15 min. 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 toharmonize the building regulations of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway andSweden. Their first task was to develop a structure for building regulations thatwould be logical, transparent and compatible with the regulations existing inmember 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 andbuilding subsystems that are to be attained to meet the Level 1

objectives

Level 3 OPERATIVE REQUIREMENTS - Specific requirements in order thatthe principles laid down under Level 2 may be applied in the designand construction of buildings

Level 4 VERIFICATION - Instructions or guidelines for verification ofcompliance

Level 5 EXAMPLES OF ACCEPTABLE SOLUTIONS - Supplements to the

regulations with examples of solutions deemed to satisfy theregulations

The NKB level system has been accepted by the Nordic countries and by the UNEconomic Commission for Europe as a helpful framework to approach reform ofbuilding regulatory systems.


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One drawback of this scheme seems to be the assumption that it is alwayspossible to go in one step from one level to the next. While it may be the case insimple situations, it may be impossible in great many others. To illustrate thisreservation, 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 ofthe room where the appliance is located, spillage of toxic combustion productsand subsequent distribution of these via ventilation system), but it takes quite afew logic steps to get from "life safety" to the "location of return air ventilationintake". Yet if those steps are not explicit, the flow of logic is broken and thewhole exercise is questionable.

UK Reform

Before 1985, the UK regulations were very prescriptive, covered subjects outsidethe interest of general public, and were written in legal language difficult tounderstand by those affected. It was generally agreed that the regulations werestifling innovation.

In 1962 the Building Regulation Advisory Committee was set up to review thecontrol system in the UK and to develop recommendations for the reform. In1964 the Committee made general recommendations which set the pattern fordebate about reforms throughout the next decade. The final push for changecame in the 1970s when the Conservative Government decided that, subject tomaintaining health and safety, regulations should interfere with enterprise aslittle as possible [6,12]. The new Housing and Building Control Bill was enactedin 1983 and the new regulations were issued in 1985.

The new regulations [6,13] cover only the functional requirements and occupy 25pages (21 pages in 1991 edition). The building designer can use any legitimatemethod to prove compliance, but in practice will probably rely on so-calledApproved Documents. These documents consist essentially of a rewrite of theold regulations and British Standards or parts of them. Acceptance is virtuallyautomatic 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 Regulations2. Alternative Approaches. These are virtually all based on British

Standards and are not much different from the Technical Solutions.


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However, they give a lot more guidance which may be helpful to adesigner.

3. Acceptable Levels of Performance. These amplify the functionalrequirements of the Regulations, but sometimes only say the same thing indifferent words. Not all Approved Documents have them.

In writing the Approved Documents the opportunity has, in many cases, beentaken to update and expand upon the earlier Regulations. This approach goesagainst the original approach of the Conservative Government which favouredcutting down Regulations to the minimum and leaving the rest to designers. Itseems that this approach has been found impractical, probably because it wouldleave Local Authorities with too little guidance as to acceptable standards. Theprincipal Regulations have been cut to a fraction of their former size, but thecomplete package of documents increased well beyond the size of the earlierRegulations.

Although Approved Documents are not the law, it is much safer for a designer tofollow them than not. In the event of a dispute, not following the guidance maybe used as evidence tending to show non-compliance with the Regulations.

The system is working relatively well, however the designers seldom use thefreedom the new regulations provide.

Australian Reform

Over the past two decades Australia has been developing a nationalbuilding code that is acceptable to all states and territories and one that isperformance-based. Until the late 1970s Australia did not have a nationalbuilding code. The first national code was a typical prescriptive codebased on the old local regulations. In 1980 work began to develop a new,performance-based and easy to understand code. In 1988 the BuildingCode of Australia (BCA) was published, followed in 1990 by an amendededition. Unlike the National Building Code of Canada, it is an actual codeand not a model code. State variations are included in order toaccommodate regional needs. This code is well structured but it goes only

part way in achieving the objective of being a performance code. Theprocess of replacing prescriptive requirements with performance ones hasbeen continued and will be continued for long time. Fire regulations inthe 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 thedeem-to satisfy solution level.


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The following is a summary of the characteristics of the Australian reform:

There has been a strong support for the building regulatory systemreform among the Australian building owners and the construction

industry. The reason for this willingness to cope with change has beenthe perceived high cost of compliance with the old code and a lowdegree of predictability of the approval process, causing unpleasantsurprises and delays.

The objective of the reform is to achieve a performance code that doesnot overburden smaller contractors and owners with complexity thatusually accompanies design flexibility in performance codes. This is tobe achieved by creation of two parallel paths - a true performancebased procedure, for large owners and contractors who can affordadvanced 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 risklevel 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 havebeen created, as shown in Table 1, compiled from Australiandocuments. The table does not show less important players andevents.

The high cost of the reform is, to large extent, the result of an obsoleteregulatory system at the beginning of the reform.

The Australian reform is well advanced, despite receiving decreasedfunding in recent years. New commitments have been made in 1994for a higher level of activities, including a major effort in the Fire Safetyarea.

New Zealand Reform

Before the reform, building controls in New Zealand [15] were contained in morethan 60 Acts and Regulations by central government plus bylaws issued by 213local government bodies. In addition some 400 special purpose bodies, such asharbour boards, also had control functions relating to building development.

In 1979 a research project quantified the economic impact of the plethora ofbuilding regulations with the result that the representatives of the buildingindustry approached Government and asked to reform the system. Governmentset up a review group and in 1986 established the Building Industry Commissionto develop a national building code that: would be performance based,


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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 efficiencyand barrier-free access, beside the usual health and safety issues.

The first output of the Commission was an economic framework for futureregulation, 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, whethermarket forces could achieve the same result and therefore the subject could bederegulated, or if the regulation should be retained, whether the current orpotential 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 itwas impossible to police the requirement. Many of these situations arose from a"knee-jerk" reaction to some incident that the regulatory body decided "mustnever happen again". A conclusion from this "shopping list" was that market

forces can be relied upon in some circumstances only, for example, when theregulation applied to commercial/industrial uses but not for the domesticsituation. This meant a matrix of requirements vs. application was developed. Apolicy decision was made that the need for any classification system must bedriven by the outcome of requirements, not as a fundamental starting point ofthe building code itself. The classification of buildings was based on the degreeto which the user had control over compliance, or the extent to which the userrelied on others for safeguarding their health and safety. Reference to theclassified uses is made only when absolutely necessary, as in many cases specificprovisions apply to most buildings.

The emphasis on property protection and safeguarding the investment of theowner was revised totally. Instead, the objectives were safeguarding users frominjury (by fire, flood or collapse), and the protection of other property i.e. notowned by the owner of the building in question. This change in emphasis overproperty protection did not go down well with the insurance industry, norinitially with the NZ Fire Service.


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New Zealand used the five level structure developed by the Nordic Committee:the first three levels set out all the mandatory requirements, and the remainingtwo levels comprise additional information as aids to compliance andinterpretation 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 whichbuilding must satisfy

2. Functional Requirements - Statements describing the functions ofbuildings required to meet the socialobjectives

3. Performance - Statement of the behaviour in use of building

The non-mandatory levels are:

4. Verification Methods - Methods of predicting performance andverifying compliance

5. Acceptable Solutions - Examples of acceptable technical solutions

New Zealand has been criticized for this very formal approach, allegedly leadingto superfluous and meaningless statements. In defense, it was stated that suchformality exerts a discipline in code writing and making later changes, as well asin 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 methodsand acceptable solutions. These groups were given a brief and were paid fortheir input. The product of the working groups was revised and incorporatedinto Approved Documents.

The acceptable solutions include detailed diagrams, which reduces the level ofargument in the approval process. The disadvantage of a detailed solution is atendency to regard it as the only solution, which may not be the case if schematicdrawings 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 wasdone to avoid confusion that different (and usually not stated) objectives ofstandards would introduce into regulation, and also to retain full control of whatgoes into the law. All standards, deem useful to the regulation, are scrutinizedand if satisfactory, with or without modification, are referenced in the non-mandatory sections of the Approved Documents.


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Durability provisions were included in the code to ensure that other performancecriteria are achieved for some time after the commissioning of the building, sothat the owner is conscious of the appropriate level of performance and willunderstand the need to make periodic inspections and maintenance. The codeaims 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 forpotential 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 theinternal resistance against change may extend the reform period or evendefeat it totally. The reform organization must be kept small and co-ordinate the input from others with expertise to do the detailed work

2. Ensure that the benefits of the reform can be sold to politicians (increasedtrade etc.)

3. The reform package should include not only the technical regulation butalso the enabling legislation

4. Set realistic time frames, employ experts and pay individuals for theirexpertise 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 arepresented. Initiate an education programme and guidance documents priorto implementation.

6. Attempt the impossible of obtaining adequate funding to avoid fluctuationsdictated by funding, nor vital tasks like education curtailed.

7. Establish the scope at the start. This may be either terms of reference or theenabling legislation. Develop the legal hierarchy with the Objectives clearlyevident at all times and available as a reference by all individuals workingon the performance based code. Do not produce solutions first to satisfystatus quo and then find a suitable objective from which they may spring.

8. Do not attempt to cover all possible situations when preparing acceptablesolutions. 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 UKregulations. The Act of Parliament is, however, much more detailed (116 pages


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vs. 21 pages of the UK Act). The Act describes the objectives of the regulationsand the structure of the regulatory system. The Act calls for making the buildingcode (responsibility of the Governor General, by Order of Council) whichprescribes the functional requirements and the performance criteria with whichbuildings 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 theobjectives and the functional requirements of the regulations and few containany detailed, measurable criteria. It is only at the level of the ApprovedDocuments where the technical details appear.

Each Approved Document deals with a particular part (called clause) and iswritten mostly in prescriptive terms, with the view to be changed in future to

performance criteria.

Although each of the Approved Documents is grouping requirementscorresponding to a particular Clause of the Code, the structure of the ApprovedDocuments is markedly different from that of the Code and the Act. While thestructure of the Act and the Code is objective-oriented, the structure of theDocuments is building element-oriented. The structure of the ApprovedDocuments seems to be chosen to better meet the needs of practitioners, but itremains to be seen if this is the case. The inconsistency of the structure of theregulations may compromise the expected benefits with regard to the

equivalency approach (it may not be clear what objective is behind a particularrequirement of the Approved Document), and the benefit of grouping therequirements pertaining to a particular building elements may not be entirelyachieved because the same building element may be addressed in differentApproved 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 successbecause the requirements were unenforceable and as such were not used inpractice. The users had to rely on deemed-to-satisfy solutions which in practicemeant going back to the old regulations. This episode showed the need for acomprehensive approach to the code reform, and specifically, that the higherlevel qualitative requirements have to be supported by quantitative andenforceable requirements.


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Despite that rather unsuccessful attempt, the idea of performance-based code hasremained 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 redraftedrecently 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 andexperience of other countries has been conducted. In recent years CanadianMortgage and Housing Corporation commissioned a study [16] of variousconcepts of performance-based building codes and the impact of prescriptivebuilding codes on innovations in construction. The Institute for Research inConstruction (IRC) of the National Research Council Canada has a number ofprojects dealing with performance requirements and performance-based

regulations.

The IRC approach is comprehensive in that we are progressing technical tools forperformance assessment such as computer modeling for fire safety and buildingperformance, and at the same time we are developing guidelines andframeworks to be applied in the evolution of the codes.

One of our efforts has been the initiation of an international task group onperformance-based building codes. This group works under the umbrella of theInternational Council for Building Research Studies and Documentation, better

known as CIB (which is a French acronym for Conseil International duBatiment). Building officials and researchers from around the world participatein the task group, coordinated by Mr. Robert Bowen, Director of the Codes andEvaluation Branch of IRC. The task group will:

assemble a body of knowledge by surveying member countries, analyzingtheir 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 toprovide greater efficiency in supporting development process of our codes.

Summary and Conclusions


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The purpose of building regulations is to serve as a legal tool to provideminimum social needs with regard to built environment, without causingexcessive costs to society. This objective can be achieved by regulationscomposed of prescriptive, functional or performance requirements.

Any requirement of a rationally constructed set of regulations has a function insupporting the objectives of the act enabling the regulations. Regulations writtenwith the performance approach have a well defined structure with acorresponding tree of partial objectives, supporting the enacted objectives of theregulations.

Traditional building regulations were created with the prescriptive approach(even though they may contain performance requirements), in response tovarious pressures of the users (the regulated and the regulators). In this processthey often deviated from the original objectives and their structure became quite

complicated. Efforts were undertaken in different countries to rationalize theirregulations, some quite radical and swift (England and Wales), some moremoderate and extended in time (Nordic Countries, Australia, New Zealand).They all have one common characteristic - they apply the performanceapproach, which allows optimizing the regulations in the present political andeconomical conditions, both within the country and internationally.

The reservation expressed towards the existing rigid frameworks based on theNordic 5 Level System seems to indicate that a flexible, dynamic structure isneeded, one that would expand in complicated cases (where it takes many logical

steps from societal objectives to technical requirements) and would not beneedlessly 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 reorganizedtree. The arrangement of the code does not have to follow the tree ofobjectives in the exact form; the arrangement of the code has to considerthe needs of the users.


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It would be beneficial to have the objectives included in the code, both for thecurrent users (to facilitate equivalency approach) and for those who will continueto 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 clearlydefined objectives

the use modern mathematical methods (such as risk-cost assessmentmethod) is facilitated by the provision of guidelines for the equivalencyapproach

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 easilyidentified

Such a code does not exactly meet the definition of the performance-based codein that it does not make the performance requirement and performance criteriumits focal points. A more appropriate name for such a code would be "objective-based code" since the hierarchy of objectives is the backbone of the proposedcode format. The name would also better convey the concept to the less-familiarwith the issue and alleviate apprehension that many have with regard to the realor perceived difficulties with the implementation of performance-type

regulations.

References

1. Hutcheon, N.B., "Codes, Standards and Building Research", Technical PaperNo. 357 of the Division of Building Research, National Research Council ofCanada, Ottawa, November 1971.

2. Ferguson, R.S., "User Need Studies to Improve Building Codes", TechnicalPaper no. 368, 4 p., 1972.

3. Gibson, E.J., (coord.), "Terminology and Guidance on the Application of thePerformance Concept in Building", CIB, Working Commission W60, ThePerformance Concept in Building, (document 9/4), December 1975.


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4. MacGregor, J.G.; "A Simple Code - Dream or Possibility?", In ConferenceProceedings: Significant Developments in Engineering Practice andResearch, American Concrete Institute, Publ. SP-72, Detroit 1981, p.199-218.

5. New Zealand Building Industry Commission; "Working Paper 1: Philosophy

of Building Control", April 1988

6. Garnham Wright J., "Building Control by Legislation: The UK Experience",John Wiley, London, 1983.

7. Elder, A.J., "Guide to the Building Regulations 1985 for England and Wales",The Architectural Press Ltd., London, 1986.

8. "Microeconomic Reform: Building Regulation", Building Regulation ReviewTask Force, March 1991, Canberra, Australia

9. "Responsive Regulation in Canada", The Government Reply to the Sub-Committee on Regulations and Competitiveness, April 1993

10. NBCC, Associate Committee on the National Building Code, "NationalBuilding 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 - NewBuilding Regulations", Proceedings of the Conference on Fire Safety Designin the 21st Century, May 8-10, 1991; Worcester Polytechnic, Worcester,Massachusetts

13. "Manual to the Building Regulations 1985", Department of the Environmentand The Welsh Office, HMSO, 1985

14. Grubits, Stephen J., "Fire Regulation Reform in Australia", Nordic Fire SafetyEngineering Symposium, August 30-September 1, 1993, Espoo, Finland

15. Hunt, John H., "The New Zealand Experience", CIB TG11: PerformanceBased Building Codes, Meeting at Building Research Establishment, Garston,United Kingdom, 28 February - 1 March 1994


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


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

Year Document Organization/Author Affiliations

1971 Australian Model Uniform

Building Code (AMUBC)

Interstate Standing Committee onUniform Building Regulations

(ISCUBR)

State, Territory and CommonGovernments

1980 Australian Uniform BuildingRegulations Co-ordinating Council

(AUBRCC)

Local Government MinistersConference

1988 Building Code of Australia

(BCA), first edition

AUBRCC Local Government Ministers

Conference

1990 BCA, second edition AUBRCC Local Government MinistersConference

1989 Building Regulations Review Task

Force (BRRTF)

Commonwealth and local go

1989 Warren Centre Project Report and 2

Technical Papers (Fire Safety andEngineering)

70 Project Fellows Industry, Code officials, fire

1990 BuildingRegulations Reform

Strategy

BRRTF Commonwealth and local go

1990 Expert Consultant Group formed toassist continuation of the WarrenCentre Project

Universities, CSIRO, industrconsultants

1990 Australian Centre for Building FireSafety and Risk Engineering

(ACBFSRE)

Universities, CSIRO, industrconsultants, BOMA

1991 Draft of the National Building FireSafety Systems Code

Expert Consultant Group Universities, CSIRO, industrconsultants

1994 Australian Building Codes Board

(ABCB)

State, Territory and Common

Governments1994 Building Codes Committee State, Territory and Common

Governments1994 Project Reference Groups Government and industry exp