BSRIA has relaunched its Soft Landings Framework – BG 54/2018 Soft Landings Framework 2018 – Six Phases for Better Buildings.

The Building Services Research & Information Association is a consultancy organisation for construction and building services engineering.

Soft Landings is its framework designed to help constructors with the building process and ensure they use best practice.

It was written and compiled by BSRIA’s Dr Michelle Agha-Hossein, and includes a number of changes to reflect feedback received from the industry.

These changes include the introduction of the term “phase” in place of “stage”, to promote the understanding that Soft Landings is not tied to any particular plan of work but is about groups of activities that may occur at certain phases of a project.

The other main change is that there are now six phases instead of five. This is to separate out the design and construction activities and to strengthen the construction content.

The phases are: inception and briefing, design, construction, pre-handover, initial aftercare, and extended aftercare and post-occupancy evaluation.

Agha-Hossein said: “Soft Landings is designed to help the project team focus more on the client’s needs and expectations throughout the project, to smooth the transition from design to operation and to address issues that POE has shown to be widespread.

“It is not just about better commissioning, fine-tuning and handover. Soft Landings can be used for new construction, refurbishment and alteration.

“Above all, Soft Landings is a way to deliver better buildings.”