Architecture & Access is pleased to welcome Allison Crunden back to her role as OHS Consultant and Safety in Design specialist following 18 months working with an international NGO.
Allison is a qualified OHS professional with 12 years experience providing advice to private and public sector clients.
Specialising in Safety in Design, Allison uses a strategic approach throughout the design process to integrate hazard identification, risk assessment and control methods to ensure safety is integral to the design throughout the life cycle of a building.
“My approach to Safety in Design focusses on the important factors of practicability, aesthetics, cost and functionality to ensure solutions that work for the designer and the client,” says Allison. “This process may involve a systematic risk assessment process of review, analysis and consultation with the design team, workers and people commissioning the design.”
Architects and designers may appreciate assistance on projects where Safety in Design becomes more technical, for example, roof access, complicated plant, public access, high risk environments such as swimming polls, confined spaces, dangerous goods and hazardous substances.
“Safety in Design is an essential consideration for architects and designers, with federal WHS legislation and state-based OHS laws requiring them to ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, that the structure to be designed is without risk at any time when used as a workplace,” says Allison.
“Yet many people are not fully aware of their obligations and how to address them.”
Architects and designers can fulfill this duty by ensuring that the structure is designed to eliminate or minimise risks to health and safety and by giving each person involved with the design relevant information about features of the design essential to safe operation and any residual risks that have been minimised but not eliminated.
Victorian and Western Australian businesses trading with other states or territories need to take extra care to understand their obligations.
The Work Health and Safety Act 2011, Regulations and Codes of Practice extended around the country over 18 months ago. However, differences remain in Western Australia and Victoria which apply their own state-based laws.
Where a Western Australian or Victorian business trades interstate or with the Commonwealth, or has workers based outside the state, it may have duties under the national WHS laws as they apply in the other jurisdictions.
Victorian-based companies carrying out design work on a building for a Commonwealth Government department or a Commonwealth licensee, are required to comply with the WHS laws of the Commonwealth for the purposes of carrying out that design work, even though the building or workplace itself may be in Victoria.
Outside Victoria, designers must build something that is not only safe to use, but also safe to construct and safe to demolish.
Architecture & Access director, Andrew Sanderson, is delighted to have Allison back on the team.
“Allison provides welcome depth to our OHS consulting services with her broad OHS experience and Safety in Design specialism,” says Andrew.
“Our clients continue to benefit from our unique capacity to offer accessibility, OHS, design and project management services under one roof.”
Contact Allison Crunden at Architecture & Access for a conversation about your project.
For more information about state and federal OHS compliance framework, go the Safe Work Australia website which includes a directory of state-based regulators.
More information about the full range of OHS and Safety in Design services.
