Role of National Construction Code in Commercial Construction

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Commercial Construction
Name Of Student
Institution Affiliation

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Executive summary
Ordinarily, there exist laws which govern almost every activity in a country. In Australia, the
construction field is governed by the national construction code of Australia, which stipulates the
various performance requirements which should be met while constructing anew building.
Various stakeholders of the national construction codes include plumbers, builders, architects,
building surveyors, engineers, as well as hydraulic consultants. The building codes are
partitioned in three volumes, volume 1 and volume 2 forming the building code of Australia,
whereas volume three forms the plumbing code of Australia.
In each of the volumes, various provision is enlisted, including the performance requirements,
the governing requirements, the state and territory additions, and variations, as well as
compliance options to satisfy the requirements of the national construction code. This task will
detail various components of the NCC as well as performing an assessment on a supermarket
case study provided.

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Introduction
In Australia, the provision for the construction process as well as any technical design is enabled
through the national construction code. The national construction code is a performance-based
code which determines the various minimum requirements for the health, safety, accessibility,
amenity as well as the sustainability of various structural buildings. In essence, it is employed
mostly for the construction of the new buildings, but then, it also encompasses the drainage and
plumbing systems of the existing buildings (Allison, Hon, and Xia, 2019)
The codes are generated by the Australian building codes board, which acts on the behalf of the
Australian government. In the process of determining the national construction codes, the board,
ABCB; ensures that
 The set requirements have a workable rational
 Addresses practical issues in an empirical manner.
 Generates societal benefits which outweigh the costs
 Encompasses the competitive impacts of regulation
 Is unnecessarily restrictive (Andrić, Wang, Mahamadu, and Zhong, 2019).
In the identification of the parts of buildings and buildings purposes, the NCC employs the
building classifications, which relates to the characteristics of the building. In terms of the legal
protection, the NCC enjoys legal cover from various statutory authorities such as the building
and plumbing legislations, as well as the state and territory legislation.
In commercial construction projects, various aspects are of significance, and the national
construction codes play a very crucial role. Our discussion will focus on the role of the NCC on
the acoustic separation, fire safety; workplace health & safety, as well as the accessibility (Pham
et al., 2016).

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Acoustic separation
Acoustic separation is of the essence, more so when dealing with rooms such as recording
studios, halls, music rooms among others. The national construction codes stipulate the various
requirements for these types of rooms so that it becomes a standard for any provisional task of
similar nature. The national construction code, for instance; stipulates that the construction
requires a lightweight material, which is in compliance with the specification 1.8. Further,
separation of the rooms requires that an FRL with a value of 60/60/60 or more needs to be
erected. This as well is in compliance with the specification 1.8. By extension, the building codes
also protects the acoustic separation aspect through the enactment of a self-closed fire door, with
compliance to the specification 1.8 (Berry, Moore, and Ambrose, 2019).
Fire safety;
The national construction code of Australia stipulates the fires safety codes which have a very
significant impact. Generally, the codes implemented by the national construction are meant to
avert the possibility of a loss of lives in any building that is being erected. The codes somehow,
might seems not to be very meaningful in the eyes of the public, but these codes really signify a
lot in the safety of the public (Murray et al., 2018). Wherever people are inside buildings, there
are various codes which guide their entry as well as their conduct inside the building. For
instance; there are codes which relate to the limited number of occupants inside a building, the
location of the fire extinguishers, keeping of the doors closed all the times or open, placement of
the exit signs which are to be strictly adhered to, not locking of the doors when the occupants are
inside among other codes (Rahmani et al., 2017).
Inside the commercial buildings, there exist various building rules and regulations which are
made in line with the building and construction codes. For instance, the situation of detection