Hot Topic

This Month's Hot Topic:

THE PRE-EMPT PROJECT:

Invitation to Participate in the Charrette Workshops

In light of recent disasters caused by natural and human induced hazards, the vision of the PRE-EMPT project is to ensure that a more resilient built environment is attained via the structured integration of hazard mitigation strategies into the construction decision-making process. The aim is to help improve the way buildings and infrastructure are planned, designed, built, managed and retrofitted to cope with natural and human-induced threats through the integration expertise from a wide range of stakeholders. This will be implemented by developing guidance for use by key stakeholders that are (or should be) involved with hazard mitigation strategies. The project is part of a research portfolio at Loughborough University that is focused on improving the resilience of the built environment to a wide range of hazards.

What is a Charrette?

Charrette workshops are a technique used by practitioners to involve various individuals and organisations directly in the planning, programming, or design of a project. The charrette is often used in community planning to encourage involvement from local stakeholders and has become popular within the sustainable building design field. Pre-empt will use design charrettes as a research method to examine the principles of resilient design. The aim is to facilitate collaborative workshop in which a group of designers (sometimes with other groups, or laypeople) work together on a specific problem.  

Format of the Charrettes

Duration: Maximum of 1½ hours for each Charrette (example of agenda is provided on next page)

Location: Based within the offices of participating organisations (to garner information from teams of people that are used to working together in ‘real life’ scenarios).

Context: One project brief will be provided; this brief will ideally focus on a ‘live’ ongoing project. The PRE-EMPT team are keen to investigate a project brief focused on educational establishments (or alternatively one brief from the following options; residential, governmental, or industrial).

The briefs: The project brief will be provided by the participating companies, this would allow the teams that are working on the ‘real life’ brief to view the project from a slightly different perspective. These briefs will then be tweaked by the PRE-EMPT team to change the risk levels/threats from a range of realistic hazards.

The Charrettes team: The PRE-EMPT team from Loughborough University will consist of two facilitators and one data collector.

Data collection: There are a number of ways that the data will be collected, these include, note taking, record/collection of worksheets/final project summaries (that will be produced by the respondents), sound recordings of plenary/wrap up presentation(s). The respondents will be asked about the decision-making process, what information they had access to/did not have access to, and then requesting them to reflect on how their decisions were informed/how the process could have been improved. The PRE-EMPT team will need to identify what was different for the respondents, what information/expertise was missing and also provide them with feedback.

Timescale:The PRE-EMPT Charrettes will be undertaken between August 2008 – May 2009

What we need from participating organisations

·   Send the EMCBE a brief from an ongoing project (confidentiality is ensured)

·   Organise a team of about 6-10 team members from your organisation to participate in the workshop

·   Host the workshop in a suitably sized room (where 2-3 small breakout groups can be accommodated)

·   Provide access to a PowerPoint projector

·   Provide a maximum of 1½ hours of your time on a day/date to suit you.