RIBA: Fire Safety Full Circle | Manchester

Fire safety full circle: application throughout design, construction, occupation and use

This seminar will introduce construction professionals to the full circle of fire safety, which some refer to as: ‘total fire engineering.’ Essentially, the talk will cover fire safety implications throughout the design, construction, occupation and use of a building. There is a legal obligation to design and construct buildings that accord with the Building Regulations 2010, and then after completion, for those who occupy and manage buildings there is an obligation to comply with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. These two pieces of legislation are not mutually exclusive and are connected by Regulation 38.

Our legislation is performance based, yet our national guidance on fire safety design is prescriptive. Ultimately, if we wish to innovate or seek architectural freedoms, we must understand the fire safety problem before identifying a solution. This seminar will begin with an examination of national fire statistics in England and Wales, and reveals the key points relevant to those who design buildings and infrastructure.

Supported by case studies, the speaker will offer prescriptive solutions for standard building types and explain the interaction between the various levels of guidance from Approved Documents to British Standards. Finally, the seminar will address the implications of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 on the end-users of buildings and the management obligations that prevail throughout a building’s life cycle.

An awareness of the full circle of fire safety will ultimately make us better equipped to design and build better buildings.

Speaker: Ben Bradford, BB7

Ben has been voted by IFSEC Global to be among the top 10 most influential people in fire safety. He sits on the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Building Control) Professional Group Board, the Institution of Fire Engineers (London Branch) Committee and the Institutions TSAG Competency and Ethics Group. Ben is the principal author of PAS 7: Fire Risk Management Systems Specification, for and on behalf of the British Standards Institution. Prior to founding BB7 in 2009, and while working as a Chartered Building Control Surveyor in London and the South East, he gained a comprehensive understanding of building pathology, construction, building legislation and Codes and Standards. In 2014, Ben was elected vice-president of the Chartered Association of Building Engineers.

Core Curriculum topics: 1. Being safe 2. Designing and building it

Book online here

This event is also running in Liverpool.