Designers - roles and duties

As a competent designer you are in a unique position to reduce risks. It is your duty to consider the hazards and risks to those who:

• carry out construction work including demolition
• clean any window or transparent or translucent wall, ceiling or roof in or on a structure or maintain the permanent fixtures and fittings
• use a structure designed as a place of work
• may be affected by work such as customers or the general public.

Designers include:

1. architects, civil and structural engineers, building surveyors, landscape architects, other consultants, manufacturers and design practices (of whatever discipline) contributing to, or having overall responsibility for, any part of the design, for example drainage engineers designing the drainage for a new development.
2. anyone who specifies or alters a design, or who specifies the use of a particular method of work or material. Such as a design manager, quantity surveyor who insists on a specific material or a client who stipulates a particular layout for a new building.
3. building service designers, engineering practices or others designing plant which forms part pf the permanent structure (including lifts, heating, ventilation and electrical systems), for example a specialist provider of permanent fire extinguishing installations.
4. those purchasing materials where the choice has been left open, for example purchasing building blocks and so deciding the weights that bricklayers must handle.
5. contractors carrying out design work as part of their contribution to a project, such as engineering contractor providing design, procurement and construction management services.
6. temporary works engineers, including those designing auxiliary structures, such as formwork, falsework, façade retention schemes, scaffolding, and sheet piling.
7. interior designers, including shopfitters who also develop the design.
8. heritage organisations who specify how work is to be done in detail, for example providing detailed requirements to stabilise existing structures.
9. those determining how buildings and structures are altered, for example during refurbishment, where this has the potential for partial or complete collapse.