The potential of integrating fire safety in modern building design

Whether explicitly acknowledged or not, modern building design is strongly influenced by fire safety considerations. The building design community, broadly construed, appears to remain surprisingly unaware of the extent to which prescriptive fire safety considerations impact building designs. However, several decades of advances in fire safety science have gradually revealed the potential value of integrating fire safety as one of the many variables that should be optimized during the building design process. This paper presents outcomes from a series of mediated roundtable discussions that occurred during an international seminar aimed at reflecting on the current status of fire safety and fire protection concepts within overall building design processes. An attempt is made to emphasize discrepancies between the perceptions of fire safety considerations, requirements, and drivers exemplified by the various stakeholder participants. A distinction is made between the status of those individuals presently charged with the fire safety design of a building, and the future potential for further integration of fire safety considerations within the building design process. Fundamental changes in support of holistic provision of fire safety in the modern built environment are proposed.