Refer to DG / MATERIALS & FINISHES
Refer to DG / FABRIC
The Work Health and Safety Act and the Department of Education principles of student safety and welfare mandate the avoidance of accidents through careful design of facilities.
This section lists some, but not all, of the design considerations that must be encompassed to avoid accidents in the built environment.
Two specific strategies that are appropriate to school design are:
Safety by Design
Under the new Work Health and Safety (WHS) legislation, there are a range of new legislative and regulatory requirements, supported by a suite of codes of practice clarifying how these obligations can be met. In particular, there are specific requirements and expectations of entities and persons defined as a “designer”.
The definition of “designer” in the WHS legislation not only affects the actual designer, but also places duties on all those who are connected with the design, including during construction, end use, maintenance and demolition or de-commission. The designer must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the plant, substance or structure is designed to minimise risks to the health and safety of all parties who will work on a site connected with its design as well as the end users of the facility.
An important part of the Safety by Design principle is recording the risk assessments that are conducted during the design and providing to the client, owners, any users/occupiers of the facilities and those who will be building or maintaining the facilities, details of:
Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED)
is a strategy that focuses on the planning, design and structure of cities and neighbourhoods so as to reduce crime. It reduces opportunities for crime by using design and place management principles that reduce the likelihood of essential crime ingredients (law, offender, victim or target, opportunity) from intersecting in time and space.
Predatory offenders often make cost-benefit assessment of potential victims and locations before committing crime. CPTED aims to create the reality (or perception) that the costs of committing crime are greater than the likely benefits. This is achieved by creating environmental and social conditions that are not conducive to crime activities including:
CPTED utilises the following four key strategies:
All CPTED strategies aim to create the perception or reality of capable guardianship.
The design of facilities should not only be inherently safe but visually and pragmatically safe and not tempt students or the general public into unsafe practice. Particular attention is required to prevent relatively easy access from surrounding surfaces to structural elements and roofs at high levels.
Circulation or active play areas should be planned to avoid situations where a head could strike low building elements such as stair landings, roof overhangs or beams etc. Depending on the space available, landscaping, walls, rails, seats or enclosures may have to be utilised if the situation is considered hazardous.
Maintenance of services and structures should be considered during the design phase to ensure that maintenance activities can be undertaken in a safe manner.
A Whole of Life approach should be used in the selection of materials, services and equipment to ensure that the safe maintenance procedures can be implemented for all building elements and services. Refer to Whole of Life section of the Design guide for additional details.
All materials must comply with appropriate safety standards and Australian Standards particularly standable or walkable surfaces including the roof, skylight strips, skylight domes, turbo vents, fans, etc.
Exposed accessible structural elements such as struts should be minimised and well out of reach. Typically, that is beyond 3m vertically or 2m horizontally from any standable surface.
Sunshade frames where within reach 3m vertically or 2m horizontally from any standable surface should be designed to prevent climbing by removing handholds, or by infilling the frame with expanded mesh or the like.
Refer to relevant AS and the advisory documents prepared by relevant Authorities (such as WorkCover)
Possible requirements to be confirmed by consultant:
To minimise the potential hazard of collision with steel columns, the following should be done:
Where downpipes are supported by cleats off columns or walls, the gap between downpipe and column or wall must be sized to avoid creating the potential for entrapment of a knee, torso or head.
Gap dimension:
Where perforated metal panels can be accessed on balustrades, screens etc, the holes are to be <7mm dia to reduce risk of injury. Where larger holes are preferred, they should be nominally 25mm dia. This is safer for fingers and avoids creating a potential toehold.
It is important to ensure that machinery and work areas are laid out in a safe and useable manner.
Large-scale special area drawings are required which show:
Note the following:
If machines are located back to back they should be:
Any Trade names and diagrams used in the EFSG only indicate the typical machine measured, but actual specifications for machines for particular projects should be checked with the recommended equipment list current at that time.
Power Outlets are shown in the approximate preferred locations near the machine inlets.
It is important to ensure that all serviceable plant and equipment is provided with means of safe access. Requirements to be considered include:
Major problems affecting schools, with enormous cost, are arson, theft and vandalism. The impact of these activities is not only measured in financial terms but also in the effect on student learning outcomes, interruptions to operations and emotional trauma experienced by student, teachers and parents.
Security risk must be minimised for all projects. Implement appropriate preventative measures in the project design, planning and construction.
Advice is to be sought from DoE School Service Unit and the Security Unit, early in the design stage of a school, to determine the security risk of the proposed site and to determine the extent and style of the security fencing or other measures to be implemented.
Security fencing should be provided along road frontages and other site boundaries which face public areas or walkways.
The security fence is to be designed to prevent climbing.
Generally a 2150mm high palisade type prefinished tubular steel fence would meet this criteria.
The fence will be a feature of the school and so should aesthetically enhance the school image in an unobtrusive manner, whilst not encouraging access to the site.
The height of the fence may need to be changed to suit the local conditions and characteristics of the students within the school.
Where security fencing is provided along non-road boundaries, it may be reduced in height to 1825mm weldmesh or other style to DoE approval. If enhanced security is required, the provision of a barbed wire extension to 2275mm will be confirmed by DoE Planning Review. Appropriate landscaping can also soften the appearance, provided such measures do not provide a means of scaling over the fence.
Where security fencing abuts an adjacent property fence, provide a return panel to prevent access between the security fence end post and adjacent fence.
Where no provision is made for a security fence the building fabric becomes the first physical point of protection, and this should be taken into consideration in the design.
To minimise the likelihood of break-ins and their effects, Safety in Design and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design principles are to be implemented in the planning.
In the planning process it is important to consider and balance many differing, often opposing or conflicting issues in order to develop a safe environment. The following are safety issues that should be considered:
School entries are generally to be located away from shopping centres, licensed premises, bottle shops and other locations identified as having an increased security risk
The possibility that school grounds will be used as a thoroughfare must also be considered. The use of school grounds as a short cut should be discouraged by either site selection or appropriate perimeter protection. Responsible use of the school increases security, however the reverse is true of unsupervised or unorganised activities, which should be discouraged.
Buildings should be as compact as possible for easy access by security personnel. Site planning should not preclude the possibility of fire and security vehicles gaining access to all the buildings. Appropriate vehicular gates must be included in at least two locations in the security fence and appropriate paved areas must be included to facilitate prompt access, to all school buildings under all weather conditions, for security, fire and other emergency service vehicles.
Ensure that there is adequate and secure storage for materials and tools as materials and tools not secured may be used to force entry and/or assist in arson.
Refer to Educational Facilities Standards and Guidelines (individual) Rooms & Spaces for technical data for required storage.
Fabric generally should be fire resistant and robust to resist illegal entry, vandalism and arson. Refer also to the Whole of Life section for principles of material selection.
Structural members should have sufficient protection from internal fire to allow time for detection, alarm, fire brigade arrival and extinction of the fire before failure can occur. The building regulations define the appropriate fire rating requirements
Roof Space is to be compartmented or otherwise designed to limit fire spread and access throughout the building
Refer to Building Code of Australia (BCA)
Roof Lights should be avoided or made inaccessible.
Under Floor Space should be securely enclosed and compartmented where possible to limit access and spread of fire.
Refer to DG / MATERIALS & FINISHES
Refer to DG / FABRIC
Generally it is recommended that there should be no external glazing below 900mm in schools, as glazing is susceptible to damage.
Refer DG WINDOWS / GLAZING
Secluded or vulnerable windows should have high and steep sills and/or be protected by security grilles, etc.
Doors or roller shutters are to be selected to suite the individual security application.
Roller shutters/grilles should be of security design, and should fit the threshold closely as for doors. Canteen servery shutters should be designed to prevent their being sprung out of guides and flammables being pushed under, eg by counter step up behind, or other solid shutter used.
Security Lighting should be provided to areas to encourage natural surveillance. It should not be provided to concealed areas as this may only assist intruders.
External Light Fittings are commonly vandalised so should be robust and located out of reach.
External Fixtures should be of robust design to resist vandalism. Fixtures should also be considered as possible means of unintended access to upper levels.