An overview of Prevention through Design (PtD): The architect’s role in the lifecycle of building safety performance

The notion of Prevention through Design (PtD) has been used extensively to mitigate any potential hazard and minimize residual risks during the early design phase. However, there are hurdles in implementing the PtD concept, such as lack of enforcement in terms of legislation and guideline, thus decreasing architects’ responsibilities towards implementing PtD in the design and planning stage. Therefore, the review was motivated to highlight the PtD concept and the architect’s responsibility to build safety performance throughout its entire lifecycle. The finding of this paper reveals the themes that influence the role of architects towards adopting the PtD concept, which in turn affects the safety of the whole building lifecycle. Since this paper focuses solely on the role of architects, further development of the topic can be aimed towards other roles of consultants.

Digital information technologies for prevention through design (PtD): a literature review and directions for future research

Purpose With the rapid development of digital information and modelling software applications for construction, questions have arisen about their impact on construction safety. Meanwhile, recognition that designers can help reduce risks involved in construction, operation and maintenance via a prevention through design (PtD) approach (also known as design for safety) highlights the significance of digital technologies and tools to PtD. Thus, this paper aims to provide a systematic review of a wide range of digital technologies for enhancing PtD. Design/methodology/approach A five-stage systematic literature review with coding and synthesis of findings is presented. The review covers journal articles published between 2000 and 2020 related to the applications of various digital technologies, such as building information modelling (BIM), 4D, databases, ontologies, serious games, virtual reality and augmented reality, for addressing safety issues during the design phase in construction. Findings Analysis of the articles yielded a categorisation of the digital applications for PtD into four main areas: knowledge-based systems; automatic rule checking; hazard visualization; and safety training for designers. The review also highlighted designers’ limited knowledge towards construction safety and the possibility to address this by using gaming environments for educating designers on safety management and using artificial intelligence for predicting hazards and risks during design stage in a BIM environment. Additionally, the review proposes other directions for future research to enhance the use of digital technologies for PtD. Originality/value This paper contextualises current digital technology applications for construction health and safety and enables future directions of research in the field to be identified and mapped out.

SERVICE CREATION FOR RE-NORMALISING ESSENTIAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT: A PREVENTION BASED DIGITAL TECH APPROACH

This research investigates service creation in/after effect of coronavirus pandemic targeting the essential business environment. It follows prevention through design approach to facilitate business owners to maintain their business environments at low COVID contraction risks, for both customers and staff. The effectiveness of recommended prevention practices (like social distancing and hand-sanitising) is uncertain at public workplaces, simply due to inevitable workers and customers interactions. Such uncertainty, especially in cases of retail stores and hospitals, raises a need for the design of services and support systems for common/necessary public business activities to reduce the burden on people involved. This research investigates the risk-related metrics to realise such digital services, focussing on three types: congestion at the work environment, disinfection of store area/objects, and sanitisation of people and staffs involved. Based on this, a digital technology-based service COVSAFE was created and tested through a proof-of-concept implementation for a supermarket business environment. This implementation and its evaluations highlight the bottlenecks/challenges for realising this system in everyday scenarios.

Seat Belts and Second Chances

This chapter argues for a potentially high-impact but underutilized strategy: restricting or limiting access to highly lethal methods for suicide, especially firearms. It begins by describing the role of seatbelts in traffic fatality prevention. Prevention through design assumes that injuries, illnesses, and fatalities can be most effectively reduced or controlled by designing and building systems that eliminate or remove potential hazards from the very beginning, before they can cause any harm. If we shifted our mindset surrounding suicide prevention in a way that better aligned with the prevention through design approach underlying traffic fatality prevention, we might reconsider the considerable time, effort, and resources being devoted to the development and implementation of suicide risk identification and detection methods, and consider instead the potential impact of redirecting these efforts toward environmentally focused strategies that are more likely to reduce suicide rates. The chapter then considers the life-saving effects of laws and policies designed to reduce access to firearms, discussing firearm suicide in the United States.