Building code amendment and building resilience: perspective of building code users in New Zealand

Abstract

PurposeThe process followed in amending building code creates problems for code users within the building industry. These problems include the need and frequency of changes made to building code, access to updated documents, method of communication, amendment interval and amendment pathway. This study aims to explore the viewpoints of building code users regarding building code amendments in New Zealand.Design/methodology/approachUsing a closed-ended questionnaire survey, this paper examined the New Zealand building code amendments by evaluating the views of experienced and relevant stakeholders within the research area.FindingsA high proportion (50.90%) of the survey participants agreed to a three-years building code amendment cycle, as against the current biannual Amendment practiced in New Zealand. Findings from the study affirmed the necessity for building code amendment and the support for free amended building code documents to the public and other building standards. The study concludes with strong support to the use of intensive research and learning gained from disasters in building code amendment in New Zealand. Implementing the code users opinions encourages disaster resilience through effective application of the building code requirements in design and construction.Originality/valueThe contribution from this study offered a unique insight into the perspectives of building code users on building code amendment in New Zealand and ways of incorporating the findings in the building code later updates to improve disaster resilience in the built environment.

An evidence-based framework validation for building code improvement in New Zealand

“…This section presents an evidence-based framework designed to improve the building code and create an enabling environment to promote performance-based building code practice in New Zealand, as shown in Figure 1. The evidence-based framework was developed and designed based on intensive qualitative and quantitative research studies (Nwadike and Wilkinson, 2020a, b, c, 2021a, b; Nwadike et al , 2019a, b, 2020; Nwadike and Wilkinson, 2021c). The intensive study consists of the benefits of building code amendments, challenges in complying with code requirements and how it affects disaster resilience in the built environment, identifying parameters in developing frameworks, the procedures for amending the codes and the impacts of innovative techniques in the application of building code requirements in New Zealand.…”

Prioritising optimal underutilised historical buildings for adaptive reuse: a performance-based MCDA framework validation in Auckland, New Zealand

“…Hence, the conservation of heritage buildings cannot be sustained without effective stakeholder participation (ICOMOS, 2010). A significant challenge when addressing the diverse interests of these multiple stakeholders would remain to establish and maintain a discussion while generating a consensus (Nwadike and Wilkinson, 2021a;Randolph and Freestone, 2012). This collaborative adaptive reuse decision-making process can be optimised through the performance-based planning approach (Aigwi et al, 2019a).…”