Fire safety
What sort of built environment do we want for the future? When you look at the built environment over the past 20 years, we have created many buildings that are not resilient to fire and we continue to build them. While the best approach to fire safety is not to have a fire in the first instance, it’s important that we ask the question: what sort of built environment do we want in the future? Iain Cox, chairman of the Business Sprinkler Alliance, discusses
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According to authors Raynor & Mumtaz, writing in the Harvard Business Review (April 2013), they identified three business rules that were typical of exceptional companies: better before cheaper; revenue before cost; and, thirdly, there are no other rules. It’s become apparent that the building industry in the UK has reversed the sentiment of these rules and we, as a country, are paying the price. Of course, change does take time. Looking back at safety in cars, the seat belt was invented as far back as 1885 but in the UK it was only required to be worn by law nearly a century later. Interestingly, airbags were developed in the early 1950s and while they are a feature of all modern cars, this safety solution is still not a legal requirement - but a car could not receive a safety rating without one. Compare this to the built environment today and a business considering fire safety; the minimum building standards are designed to preserve human life, not to ensure the resilience of the building.
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We must therefore question what value we place on the resilience of the built environment and the businesses, homes and enjoyment spaces they contain? In terms of business, the trend line on losses continues to rise despite adjustments in the number of fires. In the new, vibrant UK economy competing and trading with the world, can we afford not to invest in resilience? We should not confuse the short-term economic boost of rebuilding with the long-term impact of lost opportunity, relocation, impact on business confidence and employee welfare. The recent bushfires in Australia have only served to highlight the real cost of fire beyond the insurance claims. Does this mean that people and businesses will do the right thing to invest to protect themselves? It’s an admirable aspiration but the hard reality is that they follow what they interpret to be the regulatory minimums. The public and business owners see claims of compliance with regulations as an assurance of safety and protection from fire. They therefore think they are building, or purchasing, resilience when in fact they are not.
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Looking ahead Firstly, buildings must be people-proof. If a building relies on complex ‘management arrangements’ for safety, human nature is such that they will fail at some point. Buildings must also be adaptable as they will inevitably be used for differing purposes in their lifespan. For example, old dock warehouses are now being repurposed as indoor paintball arenas, something that was never in the architect’s mind in the 1930s. Furthermore, buildings must be risk-proofed. They should be designed to withstand the risks they will be exposed to whether that is fire, flood, theft, earthquake or storm, etc. Too often a building is conceived without due consideration as to impact of those risks over the life of the building. The construction industry has been so keen on sustainability it has forgotten about safety and resilience. Green rating systems and regulations may well recognise a highperformance building but if it’s not built to withstand fire, this will nullify the benefits gained from green construction. A fire that destroyed a newly-opened warehouse in Daventry – and one that had a high BREEAM rating for its renewable carbon technologies – had far reaching consequences, with rebuild
