Building Renovation Safety

Safe sites include many types of buildings: museums, schools, airports, prisons, data centers, police and fire departments, and municipal buildings. ⠀

These buildings have systems, personnel, and protocols in place to prevent access to all or a specific part of the facility to persons not authorized to enter. However, regardless of the site's security protocols, aging windows fail, facades fall into disrepair, and roofs leak. So, how then to reconstruct these buildings? Who is responsible for determining how the design and construction team is granted access? Moreover, how is the construction progressing without interrupting the main works?

Let's face it: building materials don't last forever. Refurbishment of existing components is inevitable over the life of each structure. At a protected site, restoration or rehabilitation projects should not involve the temporary relocation of building users, equipment, or collections, provided that a professional designer understands the construction phases. The phased design may be included in the contract documentation for the project. In order to develop an effective phased implementation scenario, the following requirements must first be taken into account.

Understand the daily activities at the facility. The design professional should interview site management and other stakeholders to understand how the site works, as well as how and when people move from one place to another within the building.

Are the main corridors busy at lunchtime or when changing shifts? In this case, the solution may be to build during non-working hours. Is there always active movement inside the building? In this case, you can consider the possibility of building in the third shift from late evening to early morning. Does the building operate at full capacity at certain times of the year or at certain times of the month? At many tourist sites, attendance increases seasonally.

Meetings and discussions with facility staff, building owners, tenants, and employees provide invaluable insights into how a facility operates on an hourly, daily, and seasonal basis and when is the best time to implement (or not implement) repairs.

Construction logistics typically involves the movement of labor, materials, and equipment through and around a facility. To effectively understand logistical issues, one must consider site topography, travel distance from one work area to another one, existing site and building barriers, and the safety levels of construction work and materials that must pass to enter the work area.

For example, if the replacement of a window requires cable car access, the architect or engineer may need to find out: Can the elevator be taken to a safe location? Are there secure barriers at the site that will prevent the elevator from reaching the working area? Finally, can the elevator remain in the work area during construction, or does it need to be returned to site at the end of each shift?

For restricted workspaces, building logistics planning requires more than just physical conditions. Screening workers in and out of the construction area can take an extra hour or more at the beginning and end of the work day as identity and equipment are checked and inventory is also taken. Sometimes design and construction personnel must pass through the security system several times: at the periphery of the facility, within the area of work being performed, and again at the border of the construction zone. Preliminary security checks and background checks may be required before workers arrive on site. Anticipating these obstacles and factoring them into the phased design and schedule of the project is essential to meeting schedule and budget.

Typically, protected sites require temporary structures that must be included in the design. They consist of walls, screens, gates, doors, roofs, which are erected or installed before construction work begins, and are dismantled (and sometimes reused or incorporated into a permanent structure) after construction work is completed. These barriers separate the design and construction team, as well as the construction work, from the occupied building. Designed to protect against noise, smoke or odors; critical barriers to reduce releases of hazardous materials; physical barriers to prevent building occupants from entering the work area, temporary structures can even be configured to prevent water or air from entering during the construction process.

Let's say that removable partitions were installed in a financial services building to separate staff from construction work. These modular wall systems were erected 1.80 m from the outer wall. Outside, access to the scaffolding was given to masons who were tasked with a project to replace the sealant. Not only was sealant removal noisy, the old sealant contained hazardous materials. Along the perimeter of the windows, a critical barrier prevented dust particles from entering the building. The temporary modular wall system reduced construction noise, allowed construction workers to be inside the building without disturbing occupants, kept hazardous materials secure during cleanup, and shielded the structure from view.

Why is the visual barrier important? When working with hazardous materials, workers usually wear hazmat suits that can intimidate non-professionals. Despite compliance with all regulatory requirements, the reduction of hazardous material releases usually causes fear among those who do not understand the process.

Sometimes temporary walls or tunnels are needed to allow building occupants to cross the construction area. Barriers need to be installed, including temporary lighting, electrical HVAC systems.

Temporary roofing is often used to protect a building during a roof replacement project. In many cases, temporary roofing membranes can be designed as a layer in a new roofing system and therefore remain in place as a permanent element of the entire project.

A flexible and synchronized repair plan allows you to tailor recovery and rehabilitation projects at safe sites to site conditions and protection requirements. Whether it's preserving irreplaceable art or data, protecting schoolchildren, protecting government employees, or maintaining the security of a correctional facility, building designs in safe, occupied spaces must include not only proper design and restoration work, but must also maintain the building's integrity.