Design and safety: from the EU Directives to the National Legislation

This contribution wants to examine the relationship between the role of the designer and the role of the safety coordinator in design and construction phase. EU technical analysis say that the designer plays a key role in the design preparation stage, and is so important in preventing occupational risks on construction sites. In nationals codes the relationship between design and safety it is not so strong. The chronological path of EU directives dealing with Health and Safety at work in temporary and mobile sites it is analysed, starting from 92/57/EEC till arriving to the later EEC communications on the subject. Contemporary, the national Italian legislation is analysed, from Decree 494/96 till Decree 81/08, with the specific aim to search the connection between the role of designer with respect to the safety in project development. This way it is possible to reconstruct the actual link among architectural design and safety design. It is thus possible to individuate the weak points in this relationship that lead to a difficult safety management in construction phase; main finding is that the connection between design and safety has been transposed into national standards in very different ways and only through a cultural awareness of the designers on the issues of health and safety objectives of Directive 92/57/EEC will be reached.