Fire Safety Design Considerations

Fire! A means of cooking in some remote parts of the world, can be dangerous, if generated or propagated in large quantity. In any building design, fire is one of the factors to be considered, to avoid harvoc.
Here are a few factors to be considered during design stage;

Type of Occupancy.

This is the first point to be put into consideration, when designing. The question is, what is the purpose of this building? Is it residential, or industrial. This will trigger the basics of the design, not tampering with the standard of construction. The number of people that will occupy the space, and the dimension of the building will help a lot.

Building Construction.

This particularly deals with the material types to be specified in the design. There are couples of materials to be used, relative to the durability, resistivity, or non-combustibility of such materials, the designer must choose the best that suites the purpose of the building. The materials must be the type that must, if non-conbustible, be fire resistive.

Cost.

This is funny! But, it must be considered, not all fingers are equal, so, before you decide on which materials to be used, consider your client’s financial stands.

Means of Egress.

This is the most important life safety consideration. This actually deals with the ease and how the occupants will escape from the building, to avoid being consumed by the raging fire. The designer should put into consideration, the travel distance; which is the distance to be travelled before reaching the exit points. Also,  the exit width; this deals with the dimensions of the exit points, it must be well dimensioned enough to accommodate occupants.

These are the few factors to be put into considerations, that will harness safety from inferno.