Design and Specification

The best design team in the business - yourselves and the IFC Group!

The designer of modern buildings has never had such freedom from restraint from fire regulations than he has now. The worldwide emergence of a functional approach to the design of buildings is gaining pace with a growing acceptability of alternative solutions. The demand of the designer is solely that he builds a fire safe building. Fire safety practitioners would share the view that traditional fire safety approaches tend to inhibit the design process, and yet, on most occasions, only produce a pseudo-safe building. Using modern methods of smoke containment or smoke ventilation, it is easier to maintain safe egress routes than it has ever been before. As a consequence, the travel distances may be significantly extended, particularly if one uses time-based rather than distance-based criteria.

IFC's fire engineering and design team are fully versed in both of these aspects of smoke control and are able to produce a scheme that will enable you to take advantage of the functional objectives of regulations without stifling your creativity. Our team of fire engineers are a perfect adjunct to your own design teams.

Conventional fire resistance requirements can inhibit the use of materials that do not meet, for example the insulation requirements laid down in guidance to the regulations. Even where contact with the wall cannot be avoided, constructions that meet the stringent temperature rise criteria are probably still "super safe". Such levels of protection can be expensive and inhibit the design of the building. Detailed analysis of the building and its use may be able to quantify the safety of lower levels of protection. Alternatively, fire suppression measures may allow the use of larger spaces. Analysis of stress levels in the construction can often lead to a reduction in fire protection, and cost savings.

Atria design is typical of many of the problems facing a designer. There is no absolute solution for atria, it is a question of determining the objectives to be achieved and designing the atria strategy around them. In helping draft the BS 5588 Guide to Atria Design IFC staff have a unique understanding of the underlying philosophy.

The BS Guide on the Use of Fire Safety Engineering in Buildings is probably the most comprehensive document on fire safety produced. Members of the IFC design team have made a significant contribution in the development of two of the sub-systems, those dealing with the development and control of effluent gases and the containment of fire to the enclosure of origin. IFC staff are therefore natural members of any QDR (Qualitative Design Review) team set up to design a complex building, and then help implement its philosophy

Example: Click to view