Performance Based Design Case Study – Fire Protection Design without a Prescriptive Guide

How do you design a building with no Building Code? This was the question asked at the 13th International Conference on Performance Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods conference held in March 11 – 13 2020, Auckland, New Zealand.  The conference presented the various SFPE Chapters with a case study that the Chapters could research and present on based on a fundamentals approach addressing the intents of fire protection and life safety codes of Modern Commercial Buildings.

The BC Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers compiled a team of nine members from two organisations across Canada to provide a purely performance based design.

Our challenge was to address the fire and life safety concerns of a remote and off the grid resort style high rise structure.

The Middle Earth Hotel and Retreat is a mixed-use, seven-level, energy-positive building located in the King Country protectorate of Middle Earth. The topography to which the Hotel and Retreat resides within is volatile, remote, dense bushland and mountainous. The fire strategy adopts a first principles deterministic approach in which hazards are identified, risks evaluated and assessed, with risk proportionate mitigation measures introduced that align with the building drivers and objectives. Where possible, risk has been quantified and rationalised in relation to contemporary understanding of fire dynamics, human behaviour, and building materials. This fire strategy maintains a primary focus on means of escape that is underpinned by Available Safe Egress Time (ASET) / Required Safe Egress Time (RSET) analysis. CFD and evacuation modelling were utilized to evaluate the design.

The Middle Earth Retreat is subject to a number of design challenges and threats due to the remote location, local environment, and emerging societal threats. These extend beyond the remit of conventional fire safety but are considered relevant to the building and essential to the promotion of safety for the building occupants.

This presentation seeks to provide an overview of the results of the analysis as well as outlining the research findings that inform the emerging challenges that are shaping the built environment.

Date: October 27, 2020
Time: 12:00PM (Pacific time)
Location: On-line (MS Teams)
Cost: No charge
Registration Deadline: October 23, 2020 (Late registrations will not receive the invite to join the meeting.  Please register on time.)

Kieran Ager is the Director of the Vancouver and Calgary offices for Jensen hughes, with over 15 years of Fire Engineering experience. Mr. Ager has led the development of numerous medium to large scale projects in Canada, the United Kingdom, Myanmar, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. He has extensive experience in the use, application, and supervision of multiple fire engineering tools including CFD modelling, Zone models, thermal radiation assessments, probabilistic risk analysis, and structural fire engineering packages.

Mr. Ager specializes in developing solutions for emerging challenges within the built environment that includes high rise construction and integration, the promotion and use of sustainable materials, embracing and advancing emerging technologies that influence industry and society, and structural fire engineering