WOBO thanks Property Australia Omnii for their reflection on the Design and the Building Practitioners Act 2020.

The NSW Government’s new building reforms elevate the role of fire engineers on multi-storey residential projects, says Omnii’s chief executive officer, Wayne Bretherton.

“Omnii has always seen the fire engineer’s role as a collaborative one, helping the entire team produce cohesive fire safety designs,” Bretherton says.

“The NSW Government’s building reforms really serve to emphasise that perspective by mandating fire engineers’ involvement in the whole design and construction process, from concept to completion.”

The NSW Government’s Design and Building Practitioners ACT (2020) outline rigorous reforms that will change the way design practitioners and builders work on multi-storey residential building projects.

The reforms were introduced on 1 July 2021 to restore consumer confidence and ensure that apartments being built are trustworthy. This followed several high-profile cases of building defects in Australia, including a serious fire in Melbourne’s Lacrosse tower that was fuelled by combustible cladding.

The NSW Government is starting with class 2 buildings – typically multi-unit, multi-storey residential buildings. While this is considered the highest priority, the reforms will be expanded to other classes of construction in the future.

“The DBP Act will operate under the pillars of safety, accountability and compliance, driven by the fact that many of the defects in class 2 buildings were found to have been caused by poor quality and poor coordination of designs,” Bretherton notes.

NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler OAM has already placed prohibition orders on several apartment buildings for failing to meet critical benchmarks, including for fire safety.

Bretherton says the DBP Act’s approach is similar to the idea of the ‘golden thread’ proposed in the United Kingdom following the Grenfell Tower fire which claimed the lives of 72 people.

“This golden thread of information for all complex and high-risk building projects requires the original intent of the fire safety design to be clearly documented and consistently applied from project inception.

“We’re going to see the role of the fire engineer elevated throughout the construction phase, so that their declared designs are fully understood and implemented.”