THE BUILDING AND THE FIRE. AN EXIGENTIAL METHOD OF DESIGNING FIRE SAFETY IN BUILDINGS

Taking into consideration that the constructed environment offers the setting for the great majority of human activities, it is necessary to develop systems of protection capable to evolve and adapt to the dangers that may appear caused by natural phenomena or human actions. The concept of performance in construction appears from the necessity of preventing and limiting the effects of the accidents or disasters that human communities have to put up with. The necessity of protecting humans and stored goods imposes to maintain certain accepted parameters of functioning of the constructed objects, for evacuating users and limiting damages.
On the other hand, in today’s context of “approach by performance” that are more and more used when putting down construction regulations, the huge mass of information that the architect has to handle when developing his own projects requires a re-evaluation of the way in which the information received from specialists is implemented in the project, with the help of coherent procedures, that should reduce the risk of appearing blueprint errors.
As we try to have a transition towards intelligent buildings, where the level of safety and comfort is high, projecting becomes more and more a challenge for team coordinators to handle extremely complex technical systems. In this regard, project methodologies were conceived based on management techniques that use the project requirements of the system as a starting point. Practically, these project requirements are technical specifications that the system must meet. They include requirement categories, such as the users’ exigencies, functional and aesthetic requirements or quality requirements that the construction must meet.