Ar C.J. Walsh – Registered Architect, Fire Engineer & Independent Technical Controller …… International Expert on Accessibility for All (including Fire Safety) + 'Real' Sustainability Implementation !
2020-09-22: Adopted at the International Fire Conference: SFE 2016 DUBLIN (www.sfe-fire.eu) …
Many years have passed since the 1972 UN Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment and the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. In 2016, Sustainable Development remains an intricate, open, dynamic and continually evolving concept. The guide and driver for frontline practitioners, policy and decision makers must be a personal Code of Ethics … an integrated and inter-related whole which cannot be reduced to fixed rules inviting game playing and ‘trade-offs’. After working with this Code, it may be necessary to expand on and discuss its principles and/or some of the issues raised … not to narrow its focus, but to broaden interpretation.
The realization of a Safe, Inclusive, Resilient & Sustainable Built Environment demands a concerted, collaborative, very creative and widely trans-disciplinary effort at national, local, regional and international levels across the whole planet – Our Common Home. The informed operation of appropriate legislation, administrative procedures, performance monitoring and targeting, and incentives/disincentives, at all of these levels, will facilitate initial progress towards this objective … but not the quantity, quality or speed of progress necessary. Our time is running out !
This Code of Ethics applies … for those who subscribe to its values … to policy and decision makers, and the many different individuals and organizations directly and indirectly involved in the design, engineering, construction, and operation (management and maintenance) of a Safe, Resilient & Sustainable Built Environment for ALL.
The Purpose of this Code of Ethics is to guide the work of competent individuals and organizations in a context where incomplete or inadequate legislation, administrative procedures and incentives/disincentives exist … but, more importantly, where they do not exist at all … and, amid much confusion and obfuscation of the terms, to ensure that implementation is authentically ‘sustainable’, and reliably ‘safe’ and ‘resilient’ for every person in the receiving community, society or culture … before it is too late !
Within the professional discipline of Fire Engineering … either a building is Fire Safe, or it is not ; the design philosophy of the Fire Engineer is irrelevant. Similarly, building designers must now begin to think and act in the simple terms of a building being either Accessible, or not. Too many pointless discussions, and too much petty squabbling, about constrained and constraining accessibility philosophies have wasted valuable time, energy and resources.
.
Colour photograph showing a typical, everyday scene in countries all over the world … a young person in a manual wheelchair, independently attempting to mount an external flight of steps in front of a building entrance. . Reality Check: A Universal, Dismally Inaccessible Built Environment ! . Click image to enlarge.
.
Building Accessibility encompasses the complete cycle of Independent Use, in a dignified manner and on an equal basis with others … and includes the approach, entry and use of a building, its facilities and information systems … Egress during normal / ambient conditions and removal from the vicinity of the building … and most importantly, safe Evacuation during a fire emergency to a Place of Safety which is remote from the building and reached by way of an accessible route.
.
Colour image illustrating the difference between Equality and Equity. Everybody is equal, and must be treated equally … but the measures necessary to achieve this in real life must, in many cases, be equitable. . Human Ability and Behaviour is a continuum … a gentle gradient on which every person functions and acts at different levels due to Environmental and Personal Factors. . Click image to enlarge.
.
To be Accessible, a building must meet a long and complex list of inter-related Accessibility & Usability Design Criteria sufficiently well, i.e. the building must work properly for building occupants and users. The design target is Effective Accessibility … not half-baked accessibility, partial accessibility, the minimal accessibility required by building codes, or token accessibility.
On the other hand, and taking additional account of the current CoronaVirus / CoVID-19 Pandemic … the construction and operation target must be Successful Implementation, i.e. the finished building design, as constructed and operated, must provide a consistently high degree of safety, convenience and comfort for potential occupants and users during the lifetime of the building.
.
Colour photograph showing the post-fire scene of a devastated Lift Lobby with an abandoned Manual Wheelchair. 25 people died and 123 were injured in a Jazan Hospital Fire, Saudi Arabia, which occurred on 24 December 2015. The fire broke out in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit and Maternity Ward. Click photograph to enlarge.
.
People with Activity Limitations … those people, of all ages, who are unable to perform, independently and without assistance, basic human activities or tasks – because of a health condition or physical / mental / cognitive / psychological impairment of a permanent or temporary nature … are a significant vulnerable group in every community, in every society, and include people with disabilities, children under the age of 5 years, frail older people, women in the later stages of pregnancy, and people with health conditions, etc.
Fire Safety Codes and Standards for healthy, able-bodied, agile adults using buildings exist in almost every country ; these people can take for granted that buildings are fire safe for them !
However, guidelines concerning Fire Safety for People with Activity Limitations / Fire Safety for ALL (if those guidelines exist at all) are usually technically inadequate, entirely tokenistic and/or blatantly discriminatory ; these people must assume that there is a serious risk to their safety every time they enter a building. For them, this is a very significant barrier to their personal development, participation and social inclusion ; it is a clear and present violation of their human rights !
Forcefully mandated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted on 13 December 2006 … the UN CRPD’s Principal Aim is to ensure that the Human Environment (social, built, economic, virtual, and institutional) is sufficiently accessible to facilitate the safe exercise and enjoyment of those rights, protections and freedoms set down in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and subsequent International Rights Instruments, by a vulnerable and major section of the population in all of our communities.
.
Colour photograph showing the scene of a raging fire in London, on 14 June 2017. 72 people died and many more were injured in this 24 Storey, 120 Apartment Residential Building. Vulnerable People, including people with activity limitations, refugees, and immigrants with a poor grasp of the English language lived at various heights throughout the Tower. . A serious design flaw in this building (among many, many others), i.e. a lack of Effective Accessibility … only one narrow, atrociously detailed staircase serving the entire building, lifts/elevators which were useless in a fire emergency, and no areas of rescue assistance adjoining the staircase … had a profoundly negative impact on Firefighter Operations and Safety on the night of 14 June and the following day. . Click photograph to enlarge.
.
It is time to Entirely Eradicate current obsolete, professionally negligent, incompetent and ridiculous approaches to Building Design which result in …
Fire Safety for SOME but not for ALL
Accessibility for SOME but not for ALL
Intricately inter-related … ‘Fire Safety for All’ is a vital component of ‘Accessibility for All’.
.
Colour image / Presentation overhead showing how building designers face a critical choice in everyday practice … Legal or Ethical … Beyond Codes ?!?!? . Legal Compliance is Never Enough. . Click image to enlarge.
2020-04-28: A look back at a Benchmark Document, and an Introduction written nearly 16 years ago. So many years, so much valuable time has been wasted …
The words ‘green’, ‘environmental’, ‘ecological’ and ‘sustainable’ are becoming part of everyday language in the Developed World, but are frequently interchanged without understanding. To date, however, the concept of Sustainable Development has been hijacked by Environmentalists. For example, no connection at all may be seen between a ‘sustainable’ building and ensuring that it can be safely and conveniently entered and used by ordinary people.
In other parts of the World, the ambiguous WCED / Brundtland Definition of Sustainable Development is being systematically rejected ; the concept is viewed as an unaffordable luxury and/or as a means of continued domination and control by the ‘North’. Yet, sustainability must be a global compact.
In this intolerant and more fundamentalist 21st Century, the United Nations System, International Law, and Social Justice continue to come under sustained attack. And the Beslan School Tragedy* demonstrates that it is far more hazardous for disadvantaged, vulnerable and indigenous peoples in every society.
Some specific objectives for the 2004 Rio Declaration were as follows …
To present a 2nd Generation Definition of Sustainable Development which is more acceptable to the Developing World ;
To restore primacy to the Social Aspects of Sustainable Development … and particularly the ethical values of Social Justice, Solidarity and Inclusion-for-All ;
To embed the concept of the ‘Person’ in Sustainable Development … rather than the fleeting reference to ‘People’ which too often results in Disadvantaged, Vulnerable and Indigenous Groups being left behind ;
To signal one of the main challenges of Sustainable Development ahead – which will be to establish a framework of horizontal co-ordination at the many institutional levels … and between the many actors and end users … in the human environment.
Adopted in December 2004, at the Brazil Designing for the 21st Century III Conference, the Rio Declaration consists of a Preamble, 10 Principles and 5 Appendices ; its central concern involves People with Activity Limitations (2001 WHO ICF).
This Declaration extols implementation, and the targeting and monitoring of ‘real’ performance – as opposed to ‘imagined’ or ‘paper’ performance.
.
