Architectural Design Requirements in Romania – Octavian-Ungureanu.Ro /Architect

Romanian Construction Quality law sets a few architectural requirements for the building design, named:

Design Requirements

Architectural, Structural, Mechanical and Electrical Design Requiremenst in Romania — Please read also: „**The Construction Quality System in Romania**”

These requirements are not solely for the design, they target the building from the design boards, the construction phases, and the use of the buildings. The developer of any building is responsible for all these tasks solidary with the architects and engineers from the design team and the constructor.

Because the developer of a building is not an architect or engineer he is obliged to hire licensed project verifiers for the design phase and later a licensed site inspector for the construction phase. The quality system is a triangle formed by the architect (and his engineering team), the owner, or developer through his project verifiers and site managers, and the constructor. The whole process is based on the Design-Bid-Construction system. In Romania the constructor is not allowed to provide technical drawings and solutions, all the details and blueprints should be provided by the architect, structural engineer, mechanical and electrical engineers.

The building industry in Romania is more and more disciplined and the control is more and more effective.

A. Structural Safety and Strenght

Maybe this is the most important requirement, as due to the seismic activity in Romania, poor design buildings might collapse killing people. Romanian structural code is basically the Eurocode adapted for the specific conditions. The

structural design of the buildings should comply with the Euro Code for Static, Earthquakes, Wind and Snow loads.

All buildings should be design according to their class and categories of importance. Nevertheless, no design should allowed the buildings collapse during earthquakes. The classes and categories of importance sets rules regarding the seismic intensities that buildings should survive with no or less damages. For the most important buildings that are required to be able to proper function after major earthquakes (such hospitals, surgery sections of hospitals, fire fighting buildings and plants) the safety measures are very important.

B. Safety in Use

Requirements that ask for proper design to prevent the fall, slips, hits and other accidents that can occur during the regular use of the buildings. The tasks are to verify the proper use of materials correlated with proper geometry of architectural spaces.

It is a relative new concern of the design requirements in Romania to allow a proper use of public buildings for disabled persons. These kind of measures try to eliminate the physical barriers for the use of disabled persons.

C. Fire Safety

All over the world people died in buildings in fire. The proper design can and should prevent the loose of human lives in fire buildings.

The requirements for the fire safety design:

Disallow the spread of fire from one building to other buildings.
Set proper intervention paths for the fire fighters.
Proper alarm the inhabitants of the buildings in fire.
Evacuate the people form the buildings in fire. Maybe the most important requirement, the evacuation should be design good enough to have functional evacuation paths, protected from the fire and smoke.
Evacuate the smoke as many people used to die or got injured not by fire but by smoke. The most important goal is to prevent the smoke infiltration in the exiting spaces, and to proper evacuate the smoke.
To prevent the fire to pass from one space to other, designing proper fire resistant walls, ceilings and floors, fire proof doors and so on.
To endure the means of the fire fight with hydrants, sprinklers, drenchers and also provide the water reserves for the fire brigades interventions.

The fire safety measures are design mostly to protect the human lives, but also to prevent and limit the damages that the fire can make. The rules are differentiated for different types of buildings, the fire danger and mostly by how many people could be in the building when the fire starts.

The fire safety design is one of the hardest task for the architects and the engineering teams, but also with vital importance.

D. Hygiene, Health and Environmental Protection

If the care for the hygiene and human health is normal when someone builds his own house, the design of public, commercial or industrial buildings can be the victim of the budget limitations. Nevertheless, there are huge rules and laws to prevent the construction of improper buildings form this perspective.

Over the usual regulations to provide quality breathing air, potable water, the means of human hygiene, there are specific rules for each industry and field of activity. The poor design can easily be a major factor in the the spread of diseases. Buildings are made to shelter and protect the people and their activities so the design requirements are very tough.

Environment protection is not a political correctness empty expression. The Romanian laws disallow the use of building materials or technologies that can be dangerous for the environment. If the use of a specific material or technology that can be harmful is justified, proper environmental protection measures should be provide.

E. Noise Protection

There are measures to be applied for both the protection of the outer noise and inner building noises and vibrations.

F. Energy Economy And Heath Insulation

In Romania there is little concern about the Carbon footprint but a very well design system to force the energy consumption for the buildings be more efficient.

Not only the building design should be use as a proactive measure, but the law requires an energy certificate when the building is finished.