The principal designer role,
without the paperwork.

It is a dutyholder role introduced through the Building Safety Act, set out in Part 2A of the Building Regulations 2010 in England. Where more than one contractor is, or will be, working on a project, the client must appoint a designer in writing as principal designer.

The principal designer must plan, manage and monitor the design work so that, if built, it would comply with all relevant requirements. That includes coordinating the other designers, making sure they meet their own duties, and sharing information with the principal contractor.

The CDM 2015 principal designer is about health and safety: identifying, eliminating and managing foreseeable risks during the pre-construction phase, and preparing the health and safety file.

The Building Regulations principal designer is about compliance with the Building Regulations. The two roles are separate. One practice can hold both on the same project, but it has to be competent for each. Avoice tracks them side by side, with the CDM register feeding one and the building regs tracker feeding the other.

Every designer has duties under Part 2A. Designers must plan, manage and monitor their own design work so it complies, cooperate with other dutyholders, and share the information others need.

Avoice gives each designer on the project a view of their own items, and collects the declarations the principal designer needs from them.

No. The dutyholder and competence duties apply to building work generally in England. Higher-risk buildings carry extra requirements on top: buildings at least 18 metres or 7 storeys tall with at least two residential units, plus hospitals and care homes during design and construction.

For those, the Building Safety Regulator is the building control authority, and the project has to pass Gateway 2 and Gateway 3.

Gateway 2 is the building control approval application to the Building Safety Regulator, made before construction starts on a higher-risk building. It includes documents such as the compliance statement, competence declaration, change control plan and mandatory occurrence reporting plan.

Gateway 3 is the completion certificate application, made before the building can be occupied. Avoice shows readiness for each gateway and drafts the documents from the registers you already keep.

The golden thread is the accurate, up-to-date information about a higher-risk building that shows how it was designed and built to comply, kept digitally and passed on through its life.

Avoice keeps the links as the work happens, from requirement to spec clause, product, drawing and decision, so the record exports as an issued, numbered document whenever you need it.

No. Your practice holds the appointment and makes every judgement. Avoice is the record and the drafting tool. It proposes updates and flags gaps, and nothing is filed, issued or signed without a person in your team approving it.

Each person connects their own mailbox. Avoice reads new mail, works out which project it belongs to, and files decisions, documents, RFIs and planning responses with the email attached as evidence. You can add rules, for example to send anything from the planning authority on a project straight to its Planning Conditions register.

No. It checks your drawings, specification and reports against the requirements and links the evidence it finds. When evidence goes out of date or is missing, it tells you. Deciding that a design complies stays with your competent people.

The building regs tracker covers England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Dutyholder and gateway rules differ by nation, so each project's registers are set up for the jurisdiction it sits in.