Open sourcing construction drawings to improve building safety?
UK has been shaken by the Building Safety Act last year, which following Hackitt Report AFAIK blames local authorities for incorrect inspections, which led to tragedies like the fire in the Grenfell Tower.
I haven't thought about it before (I hope someone else did), but why don't we open-source construction drawings, aka publish them online for everyone to see (pretty much like we do with planning application drawings). It sounds like a tested way to let anyone to become an inspector and comment on problems with fireproofing, dampproofing, structure etc.
One argument against might be that it protects against burglars to break into the building, but that sounds to me more just like "security by obscurity". After all, buildings are not that different from each other in the way they are built for anyone with a reasonable experience to know how to figure them out.
Comments
Definitely the experience from open source software is that there is little harm and a lot of convenience with publishing everything.