Surpassing the Limits to Human Cognition? On the Level of Detail in the Norwegian Building Design Guide

Abstract

The SINTEF Building Research Design Guides are a series of Norwegian building technical recommendations. The design guides are highly reputed and widely used in the Norwegian construction sector, serving as a link between the technical regulations and the design process of the individual construction project. This paper examines the element of risk in the use of multiple design guides to extract information about a topic not explicitly covered by any single guide, using the example of blue-green roofs. The research has been conducted in the form of a document study. While the advice given in the design guides is both valid and coherent, the amount of information presented is likely to be overwhelming for industry professionals. There are great degrees of awareness of quality risk present in the individual design guides, but an overall risk picture is not presented. Input from the fields of project management and psychology can help develop risk awareness strategies. The design guides may benefit from an aggregate level of information, where main technical challenges are grouped into super-level categories.