Reference no: EM133693209 , Length: word count:2000

Environment Sustainable Construction Materials

Case Study - Defects in NSW residential buildings

The Project
This case study is based on individual work. The report is an evaluation of your own learning that includes critical/analytical thinking of unit learning outcomes 4 and 5 from the Learning Guide. The report will introduce you to a topic related to defects in new construction and suitability of construction materials. Your report focus will be to obtain information from various sources and form an argument to support your case.

The case study covers subject learning outcomes 4 and 5:

Assess the suitability of materials in building components used in buildings.
Apply Australian standards and regulations relating to eco-friendly and/or durable buildings.

Background

In 2017, Shergold and Weir were commissioned by the Building Ministers' Forum (BMF) to undertake the effectiveness of compliance and enforcement systems for the building and construction industry across Australia (Shergold and Weir, 2018). They undertook review and consultations with key stakeholders and identified prevalence of serious compliance failures in recently constructed buildings that had led to diminished public confidence.

In response to Shergold and Weir (2018) report, the NSW Government established the Office of the NSW Building Commissioner (OBC) in late 2019. They developed the Construct NSW strategy to drive the government's reform agenda and address the industry and regulatory changes needed to ensure consumer confidence in buildings (NSW Customer Service, 2021). One of the important areas of reform from this strategy is customer-focused regulatory framework. The following reforms were made:

Residential Apartment Buildings (Compliance and Enforcement) Act 2020 (RAB Act) - came into effect on 1 September 2020 and provides NSW Building Commissioner and other authorized officers the powers to enter and inspect worksites at any stage of development, pre and post the issue of an Occupational Certificate.

Design and Buildings Practitioners Act 2020 (DBP Act) - came into effect on 1 July 2021. It introduced mandatory registration for design and building practitioners working on Class 2 Buildings, duty of care obligations and registrations for certain types of engineers.

Another area of reform is to establish ratings systems to provide greater information transparency. This involves working with insurers, financiers, risk rating agencies and building industry practitioners to develop a rating system for trustworthy buildings.

In the period since 2019, there has been several events and factors that impacted residential building construction in NSW and Australia more broadly. These include:

COVID-19 pandemic and associated closing of the borders for visitors/travellers to Australia in March 2020 and reopening in February 2021. A second wave of Covid closed borders again in mid-2021 to early 2022. Throughout 2021, there were periods of border closures, quarantine requirements for incoming travellers, and restrictions on non-essential travel both into and within the country.

Reserve Bank of Australia dropped official cash rates to 0.10 on 4 November 2020 and has started to increase it on an almost monthly basis since 4 May 2022 to the current rate of 4.35% on 7 May 2024.
Natural disasters in NSW with floods and storms in different parts of the state from February 2020 onwards.
Supply chains disruptions and shortages of material due to COVID-19 pandemic, border closures and other factors have impacted the cost of building materials. There is now an ongoing impact.
There are concerns with a lack of skilled trades in Australia due to a shortage of people taking on apprenticeships.

Your Case Study Report
The construction industry requires diligence and professionalism in the way it carries out business. In recent years there has been a growing concern that the use of materials in construction need to be better understood by the building industry. In addition, the performance of construction materials needs to be compliant and conform with Australian Standards and Building Regulations.
There are several causes, the wrong material has been used, the right material has not been installed correctly or a blend of both. The result is that the consumer, suppliers, and trades have been impacted.
For the case study review the media or other literature to identify a product/component/system used in residential buildings that had developed problems/defects from either not being compliant or not conforming to building codes, regulations, or standards. This is to be based on a residential home or low/medium height residential buildings. High rise buildings are out of the scope of the case study and will not be graded. Discuss the impact to the building and consumer. In your report consider possible solutions to remediate the problem/defects.

Your case study should have the following sections.
Introduction
Briefly introduce your case study
Description
Describe what you are going to cover.
Research to identify the technical information.
Information obtained from your research should consider examples related to your selected topic.
Discussion
Discussion on information found with arguments drawn from this information.
Conclusions
Briefly summarize the key findings of the report.
References
Any relevant articles from the media to introduce your topic.
Minimum of 10 academic quality sources appropriate for the research
Referencing use WSU Harvard system (see the link below). Marks will be deducted for improper referencing. If you have questions, contact the library.

Format Criteria

The length of the report is 2000 words, excluding any appendices and referencing in the number of words.

The submission is to be in the format of a report with appropriate headings and sub-headings etc.

Identify sources of all information used in your report with consistent Harvard WSU referencing style.

Use relevant images and acknowledge the source, label with image captions and cross reference the image in text.

Assessment Guideline

Refer to the marking criteria below.

The assessment will be orientated towards the quality of your report information and the research, and due consideration will also be given to the overall quality of the discussion and writing, report presentation and formatting.

A consistent writing style is required in the report.

The submission of sub-standard English will either result in less marks or a request for resubmission. Resubmissions will receive a penalty to the grade.