Building codes are a huge source of frustration for architects, designers, and builders. They are central to every aspect of building, and yet they are frustratingly difficult to use in design, and infuriatingly complicated to ensure compliance in construction.

Ever since the Great Fire of London in 1666 authorities have sought to control the making of buildings, by producing a ‘code’. Originally intended to control health and safety, the codes have expanded over the intervening 350 years to cover all manner of issues, from materials to methods to energy and sustainability. But always in the same format: a written document, set out in a form of quasi-legalese.

But now there is a revolution: The Building Code of Australia or BCA (rebadged as the National Construction Code or NCC) has been turned into a digital graphic document, called Tools^TM. That is, every part of the Code has been made into 3D images, on a website, and every image can be interrogated to reveal all aspects and details of each part of the BCA.

Essentially the hundreds-year-old written approach has been brought into the 21^st century with an interactive website (the digital part) intended for visually based designers (the graphic part). It is, without overstatement, the greatest revolution in improving building standards, not because of what it is, but how it works.

It can be the authorative source of information that can be understood by every person in the building process: from designers who are poor at written comprehension, but gifted graphically, to workers on site who can grasp a picture far quicker than 1000 words. The convoluted paragraphs in the BCA’s contorted English are hard enough for native speakers to understand, let alone a majority of workers in our industries for whom English is a second (or third) language.

Any issue in design, any detail in documentation, any argument on site can be resolved by reference to a coloured line drawing in Tools^TM, complete with full references to the BCA clauses and any related Australian Standard. There is a graphic standard that can be incorporated into drawings or used digitally on any computer. Already endorsed and being used by several large-scale builders, it will be the essential ‘tool on tablets’ on site.

If you are impatiently curious, go to the Tools^TM site here. Otherwise, here’s some background.

The most astonishing thing about Tools^TM is that it has been completely developed and funded privately. It was researched, drawn, digitised and made web-ready by a small team driven by a desire to improve building standards by changing the very bedrock of building details. And the Australian Building Codes Board or ABCB has given its moral support.

Let me tell you a story about Jerry Tyrrell. He started as a labourer in 1972, trained as an architect, inspected his first building for a buyer in 1976, and founded Tyrrells Property Inspections with his twin brother Tim, a construction lawyer.

His life’s work in one sentence: "150,000 building inspections later, I’m sick of reporting defects everyone spends a fortune fixing - cutting out decayed ends of weatherboards, replacing rusty steel, endless legal and expert costs or taking responsibility for manufacturers’ faulty products such as plywood backed flooring or external timber doors”

Along the way he changed our industry forever by getting rid of termiticides and untreated structural timbers in the late 1990s.

But Tools™ is his crowning project. He says: “It illustrates the compliance the NCC requires as it calls up reference documents such as Manufacturers' Publications and some Standards. Tools™ also shows you those age-old ’tricks of the trade’. Like using a 40mm diameter handrail because it is easier for children and your grandma to hold. Or specifying 316 stainless steel for box gutters”.

“I believe we need the Tools™ to design and build our World without mistakes, rework, unnecessary carbon cost and the constant stress of disputes or media stories about crumbling buildings. We have users telling us ‘This is the biggest advance in our Industry since the nail gun!'.

In short, it is the classic story of ‘a good fence at the top of the cliff is better than an ambulance at the bottom’. If you’ve seen forty-five years of the many failures in design and construction, you know that diagnostic problems lie at the heart of every one. It took Jerry, Tim and the team they built and $10 million of expenditure and in-kind work to produce this revolution in building codes, and hence standards.

More information is at the ‘Building Tools site” or go directly to the Tools™ App and sign up you can get 10 free page views.

Tone Wheeler is an architect / he is an unpaid ambassador for Tools^TM / the views expressed are his and not necessarily those of Tools^TM / you can contact Tools^TM on Contact@buildingtools.co, or here or contact Tone at toneontuesday@gmail.com.

Tone Wheeler

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