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The first CDM regulations were introduced in 1995 in response to the EU directive, 92/57/EEC on the implementation of minimum safety and health requirements at temporary or mobile construction sites (HSE, 1994; CEC, 1992). These regulations intended to reduce deaths and injuries during the construction and management process by changing the procedures used by associated professionals. The CDM regulations were revised in 2007 (HSE, 2007) and are likely to be revised further in 2014 (ICS, 2012). These latest revisions are intended to reduce perceived bureaucracy and to form closer links with EU directive, 92/57/EEC, as set out in the Lofstedt report (Lofstedt, 2011).

168 In the following, I will provide a brief overview of current CDM regulations and proposed revisions using the three points identified above as sub-headings. As part of this review I will discuss the compatibility of these points against a Deleuze-inspired theoretical framework and as part of a practicable assessment method. The results of this exercise will be used to consider which, if any, of these ideas could be usefully incorporated into SIAM, and what the implications of this would be in terms of Deleuze’s usefulness to forming a viable tool for practice. The resulting proposal will be used to expand and develop Table 10 above (see Table 11).

Assessment during the design process.

The CDM regulations ‘integrate health and safety into the management of the project’ both in terms of management of the design process and the construction process (HSE, 2007: 7). The intention of which is,

…to focus attention on planning and management throughout construction projects, from design concept onwards... to ensure that health and safety issues are identified, integrated into the overall design process and addressed as they go along. (HSE, 2007: 7; 32 emphasis added).

Whilst approached from a practice-based rather than a theoretical angle, this proposal for a form of assessment undertaken as part of, and within the design process, or what Deleuze might have termed, an ‘immanent’ form of assessment, reflects the broad objectives captured in SIAM.

Speculations.

Under the CDM regulations, all designers have a legal duty to ensure that every effort is made to reduce foreseeable health and safety risks in their proposed design. There are no formal mechanisms used to enforce this obligation. As the HSE note:

risk assessment of a design should be integral to, and evolve with, the design work itself. Every design is different, and every design will require a

169 degree of calculation, assessment, review and the proper exercise of judgement. (HSE, no date).

These risk assessments are constructed for a specific project or for a specific practice (HSE, no date), and are intended to help the designer speculate foreseeable risks and measures to reduce these risks. This idea of the foreseeable versus the unforeseeable risk is captured in the regulations which note that,

Designers are required to avoid foreseeable risks ‘so far as is reasonably practicable, taking due account of other relevant design considerations’. The greater the risk, the greater the weight that must be given to eliminating or reducing it. Designers are not expected to consider or address risks which cannot be foreseen, and the Regulations do not require zero risk designs because this is simply impossible (HSE, 2007: 32).

Whilst expressed differently, this reference to foreseeable and unforeseeable risks captures the two areas of speculated potential discussed by Hillier i.e. the potentials that one can imagine (speculated potentials) and those that one cannot imagine (unspeculated potentials). As I argued above, the latter occurs when the design team do not have sufficient information about assemblages in the project to make these speculations, or because they were not accounted for in the early stages of the design.

Another area of compatibility with a Deleuze-inspired approach can be seen in the way these speculations are formed. The HSE suggest that the CDM

…regulations do not prescribe design outcomes [or pre-defined end-points such as those captured in the BREEAM coding system], but they do require designers to weigh the various factors and reach reasoned, professional decisions (HSE, 2007: 32).

Whilst the CDM regulations do not rule out the use of referential models entirely, this comment rejects the idea that such referential models should determine when an assessment should be undertaken or how speculations should be formed and judged.

170 In Deleuzian terms, the CDM 2007 regulations suggest that assessment should be seen as a constant process of speculation of potentials to become safe (or unsafe). The decision to capture these speculations as a separate document (ie a risk assessment) is determined by the designer. Whilst there is no formal guidance available for making this decision, the assessment process incorporates two mechanisms to ensure that risk assessments are undertaken at key points in the design: by incorporating risk assessments across all overlapping design elements, and by introducing a CDM Co- ordinator role. These two mechanisms are discussed below.

Assessment by members of the project team.

In CDM 2007, the legal responsibility to reduce health and safety risks to the best of their ability and judgement is applicable to all members of the project team including the designers, the client, the contractor and associated building trades. To operationalise this responsibility, each designer is expected to undertake a risk assessment within the limitations of their design proposal and to consider how their proposals might impact on other, associated aspects of the design or management of the building. Thus, the architect would assess the risks associated with the design of a particular roof configuration and how this might introduce or mitigate the risks associated with erecting, maintaining or replacing this roof. They must also consider how this design affects the risks associated with the structural engineer’s proposed design for the steel frame used to support this roof, who will, in turn consider the risks associated with fabricating the frame, bringing it to site and erecting the frame. The structural engineer’s risk assessment will also consider other aspects of the design such as how the proposed steel frame effects the risks associated with the ductwork design proposed by the mechanical and electrical consultant and so forth. Because these overlaps must be discussed between different groups of designers, the assessment of risk, and the speculations that form these assessments are subject to constant review within the design team.

A more formal mechanism for identifying key areas of the design for assessment, and the speculations used in this assessment can be seen in the role played by the CDM Co- ordinator. Unlike the assessor described in BREEAM and the Code for Sustainable Homes, this CDM Co-ordinator is described in the 2007 regulations as a member of the

171 project team whose principle tasks are, to facilitate co-operation and co-ordination in matters of health and safety in the design process, to liaise with the principle contractor on design matters as they arise and to prepare and update the health and safety file.

During the design process, the CDM Co-ordinator ensures that members of the design team speculate potential health and safety risks (becoming unsafe) through all areas of decision making. They work with these designers to identify areas where, and how, such speculated risks can be reduced. They ensure that the risks assessments record these speculated risks, the way the design responds to these risks and why the resulting design is considered the most appropriate solution.

The CDM Co-ordinator discusses this developing sequence of assessments with different members of the design team as well as the contractor team. In doing so, they can ensure that the resulting design accounts for a range of speculations, both in terms of what might become of the building when complete, but also what might become of the building as it is being constructed. To illustrate this process, I would like to draw on one of my experiences from architectural practice.

In 2010, I acted as one of several architects on a large school design. During the detailed design stage, the design team considered a number of options for the external wall construction. The two principle options were: masonry construction designed with a brick outer leaf, and a part masonry construction with an external cladding system. To decide which of these was most suitable, we speculated a number of potentials to

become durable (bricks are more resistant to the wear and tear associated with the

building type), to become structurally stable (brick construction offers greater lateral stability than cladding panels), to become cost effective (bricks are cheaper, both in terms of material and labour costs) to become easier and faster to construct (setting out brickwork on site is easier than setting out cladding panels) etc. In the risk assessment, we focused on potentials to become safe / unsafe. We noted the risks that might result if the design required a number of trades working in the same space at the same time (brick layers erecting both leafs rather than combining bricklayers and cladding panel specialists), the reduced demand for heavy machinery to erect brickwork rather than cladding, the reduced maintenance and thus the reduced risks associated with replacement or repair of brickwork over cladding etc. After discussing these options and

172 reasons with the CDM co-ordinator, it was agreed that brick was a design solution with a lower safety risk than all other, viable options.

However, the CDM Co-ordinator’s consultation with the Principle Contractor introduced other speculations not considered during the design process. Building a large brick wall requires prolonged use of scaffolding. Working from scaffolding increases the risks of falling during construction and the risks of falling from an unattended site (ie by possible tress-passers). Measures to reduce these risks also affect other becomings within the design process. They extend the construction programme and limit the ways in which the school can operate during the construction process. Taking these points into consideration, it was later agreed that a brick-slip cladding system ie a system that uses small sections of brick fixed to a cold steel frame, would be used. This system could be erected and maintained using cherry-pickers around the perimeter.

This short example shows how the CDM Co-ordinator worked as part of the project team, encouraging different members of that team to speculate potential risks associated with their area of knowledge and to bring these speculations together. Similar observations are identified in broader literature. In interviews with contractors, Atkinson and Westall note how one interviewee believed that using such processes ‘allowed the contractor to educate the designers to look at the design from a site safety point of view’ (Atkinson and Westall, 2010).

This short overview of CDM forms of assessment shows areas of compatibility with the three ideas used to structure SIAM: a form of assessment based on speculations; a form of assessment made as part of, within the design process (immanent); and a form of assessment made by members of the design team rather than an external assessor. In doing so, CDM provides some directions for responding to the two questions left unanswered above. With this in mind, the following table draws on CDM to expand and develop the comparison between BREEAM and SIAM. For the sake of clarity, additions to the table are shown as italicised text.

173 Table 11: Developing the distinction between the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) and the proposed Speculative and Immanent Assessment Method (SIAM).

BRE SIAM On tological f rame wor k

Essentialist Pragmatist (in a Deleuzian sense) Modelled concept of ‘the

sustainable home, office’ etc

A block of becoming ‘sustainable’, where sustainability is an empty signifier

Transcendental process Immanent process Referential model Speculated potentials Building as whole object defined

by its properties

Building as assemblage formed of actualised potentials Asse ssme n t in p rac tic e

Assessment process is separate from design process

Assessment is part of / inseparable from design process

Assessment undertaken at pre- determined stages of the design

No pre-determined stages for assessment. Assessment undertaken when member of the project team feels a key or difficult design decisions is made during the design process

Assessment by external assessor Assessment by members of the project team. Each member of the project

team undertakes an assessment based on their own contribution. The only exception being the addition of a Sustainability Assessment Co- ordinator whose role is to ensure co- operation and co-ordination between assessments and to encourage designers to prioritise sustainable speculations in their proposals.

Assessment results in a score judged against a universal value

Assessment results in an ongoing record of key design decisions, the

174 system (valuative) entities that were instrumental to that design decision and how the decision encouraged or blocked their potentials to be become sustainable (transvaluative). These assessments

are compiled by the Sustainable Assessment Co-ordinator.

Sustainability score acts as a benchmark that the design must achieve

There is no benchmark. Each decision is judged as more or less sustainable according to the complex factors that contributed to the decisions taken during its actualisation.

One sustainability score is used to explain the sustainability of the scheme as a whole

No attempt to explain the sustainability of the design as a whole. Rather, a series of connected assessments that show how a building was actualised through a series of decisions judged as more or less sustainable This series of assessments

are compiled during the design process.

The score as benchmark is enforced as a condition of planning approval or a condition of a client’s brief. This ensures that the project team work in ways that are deemed ‘sustainable’ (through the essentialist understanding of the term).

How would SIAM be introduced into current practice?

How would SIAM ensure that the project team prioritised speculations for becoming sustainable in the design process?:

One possibility is to introduce a formal duty applicable to all members of the project team to ensure that every effort is made to make the most of, or account for foreseeable potentials to become sustainable. This

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could be a legal duty as in CDM or a condition of planning

There are no formal, referential models that determine how this duty should be met. Thus, SIAM provides only a broad framework open to adaptation. In this instance, all members of the project team would be encouraged to undertake sustainable assessments throughout the project. The role of encouragement and co- ordination would be the responsibility of the Sustainability Assessment Co- ordinator who would be appointed from within the project team.