As a designer, I obviously want to have a strong belief that the work I do is important, and that the way I approach my work plays a big part in the level of fire protection achieved in the buildings I design. And to some extent, of course, that’s true. Inadequate or incorrectly designed fire protection usually leads to poorer levels of fire protection in the long run.
But in the end, no matter how flawlessly I do my work, it does not guarantee that the fire protection in the building will be correctly executed. The reason for this is that there is a much more important element to how fire protection is designed, namely the link between design and execution, and how fire protection is resolved in practice. In my opinion, this process is often given far too little attention by both contractors and developers, but also by us fire protection designers. This article is an attempt to find out why this is often the case, and what we can do to minimise the risk that the designed levels and actual levels of fire protection differ.
The building process as it stands in Sweden today is often both complex and changing. Naturally, this is true not only for the fire protection elements. This is something that has fascinated me ever since I came into contact with it more than ten years ago, and which I have sought to understand and work from ever since. One thing I have learned is that fire safety is in many ways handled differently in this process, and that this can have both advantages and disadvantages in terms of how to achieve the requirements for fire safety in buildings.
FIRE SAFETY REQUIREMENTS AND THE CONSTRUCTION PROCESS
One of the things I like most about my job is the opportunity to follow the entire construction process. I have come to understand that this is quite unique to the fire safety designer. Few other disciplines have the opportunity to follow projects from the pre-design stage to execution inspection and commissioning. And especially not with the same person in that role through all the different phases.
So, even if it doesn’t happen every time, this is still the greatest benefit for me in my role in terms of getting the fire protection right, the ability to ensure that the level doesn’t change during the course of the project, and the understanding of how everything was intended from the beginning.
Unfortunately, this is also a major disadvantage. As a fire safety designer, you do not prescribe detailed designs, but in principle only functional requirements. Translating this into actual execution is then up to other designers, developers and contractors. The risk of losing information along the way is therefore very high in cases where the designer is changed, or the fire safety designer is not actively involved in the project. In many cases, this is because it is not entirely clear which party is responsible for fire protection at different stages.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE DESIGN OF THE FIRE PROTECTION
When looking at the regulatory framework, the basic question of responsibility is very simple and can be spelled out in one word: the Developer. It’s what happens next that can become a little complicated sometimes. The normal practice is for the developer to engage a fire consultant to ensure that they have the skills required according to the building regulations. This is often done at an early stage in order to avoid overlooking requirements that have a major impact on design and cost and that might otherwise be considered at the wrong stage. In many cases, the fire consultant already starts prescribing the functional requirements for fire protection at this stage, and thus begins the long journey towards the actual design. For many other disciplines, such as plumbers, electricians or designers, this path between design and execution is relatively short. Often, a document is written and then directly interpreted by the contractor. It is often more complicated for fire protection, where the functional requirements must first be interpreted by other designers and incorporated into their documents. Then a general contractor often takes over when construction starts and the requirements are then passed down to further subcontractors via detailed designs. The effect of the longer chain can often be a kind of construction process version of the whispering game, where the origin and purpose behind the functional requirements can easily be lost or interpreted differently as one moves further along the process.
In addition, the responsibility often shifts too when a general contractor comes in and takes over the role of developer.
One consequence of the long chain of parties and the complexity of the responsibility relationship is that it is often very difficult to claim responsibility if something happens and a failure in the execution of the fire protection is suspected.
So if the execution is to be correct, it is a bad starting point to assume that it is done because of fear of the consequences of doing wrong. Rather, the starting point should be the ambition and the determination to do right and to fulfil one’s responsibilities. And how do you do that if you want it to be right?
Author:
Mattias Arnqvist
