Building design is a challenging undertaking that must combine various expertise. Architects can request the contribution of specific expertise in their projects, such as from fire engineers, energy, or sustainability experts. Fire safety is complex. It must be an integrated part in the building design process. The use of scientific principles to understand, evaluate and critically analyse fire risks in a holistic manner is paramount.  

In 2019, the Modern Building Alliance launched what it called The EU Fire Safety Guide. It is an EU-wide guide to fire safety for buildings. The fundamental framework of the EU Fire Safety Guide is the application of a holistic 7-layer approach to fire safety for buildings starting with prevention to firefighting. The overall performance of the fire safety of a building depends on the evaluation of all the layers of protection and not just of its single components. Consideration of these 7 layers together ensure reliability of the fire safety measures thus affording a high degree of protection

To encourage the adoption of holistic fire safety strategy, there is need to create a network of fire regulators to steer concerted action towards the transition from prescriptive codes to performance-based codes, allowing the application of fire safety engineering techniques. Architects together with fire safety engineers should undertake all necessary actions to define from building design stage, the fire safety strategy using holistic and performance based approach.  

Learn more during this talk with Fire Safety expert from Modern Building Alliance, Franklyn Okwara.