Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
BSRIA's report,
Introducing Soft Landings
describes Soft Landings as:
Soft Landings means designers and constructors staying involved with buildings
beyond practical completion to assist the client during the first month of operation
and beyond to help fine-tune and de-bug the systems, and ensure the occupiers
understand how to control and best use buildings.
The purpose of Soft Landings is described in the Framework as being 'to smooth the
transition into use and to address problems that post-occupancy evaluations show to
be widespread'.
Soft Landings subsists throughout the whole life of a construction project from
design brief and feasibility through construction and commissioning into the period
immediately after handover and finally into the early years of operation of the build-
ing. The Framework splits these into stages as follows:
Stage 1 Inception and briefing
Stage 2 Design development
Stage3Prehandover
Stage 4 Atercare
Stage 5 Years 1-3 extended atercare.
For each of these stages, the Framework sets out a Checklist and Supporting Notes
with details of key matters to be considered.
Atthesametime,theUKGovernmentidentiiedtheneedtoaligndesignandcon-
struction with operational asset management, and for that purpose Government Soft
Landings (GSL) was developed. he Government Construction Strategy of May 2011
identified that integration of the design and construction of an asset with the oper-
ation phase should lead to improved asset performance, while the Government Soft
Landings Policy of September 2012 recommended that the policy should apply to
all new central government projects and major refurbishments and should be imple-
mented by central government departments during 2013, working towards a mandate
in alignment with BIM in 2016.
The Government Construction Strategy One Year On Report and Action Plan
Update of July 2012 reports that ten trial projects have been introduced to test GSL.
A draft policy document on GSL to reflect findings from the trial projects will be
produced and proposals will then be developed for roll-out of the strategy.
The responsibility for GSL from October 2012 onwards moved to the BIM Task
Group in order to ensure that BIM and GSL are in alignment and to allow work
towards the combined mandate in 2016.
It is clear that, for Soft Landings to operate as intended, the end users, operators,
contractors and designers must all be involved from a very early stage in the project.
The BIM Task Group suggests that parties involved engage a GSL Lead or Champion.
Contractualdocumentation to takeinto account theneedsof SotLandingsisbeing
prepared by the BIM Task Group, recognizing that the post-handover requirements of
GSL require an involvement beyond that conventionally provided for within standard
