Risk and Performance Assessment Framework for a Sustainable and Fire Resilient Building Environment (SAFR-BE)

• Increasingly, buildings are becoming complex “systems of systems” with many materials and attributes combining to create a whole that aims to meet a variety of design objectives including but not limited to functionality, aesthetic appeal, sustainability, safety, and security. We are now seeing this complexity move from commercial buildings and iconic structures to encompass even the residential sector. Such buildings are typically designed by professionals seeking to produce stunning, environmentally friendly, healthy, safe, and operationally efficient artifacts. They are engineered by experts from diverse disciplines, using innovative materials and technologies, that do not necessarily interact, but focus on their piece of the whole design picture. They are constructed within regulatory boundaries which largely align with the major systems or components of a building (e.g., structure, mechanical systems), albeit sometimes missing important interactions between systems, i.e., these complex designs sometimes result in important points of interaction between design objectives being outside of any individual designer’s responsibility. While this can result in rather spectacular buildings, with state-of-the-art technologies as part of the building (e.g., building-integrated photovoltaics) and within the building (e.g., automated systems for improved indoor environments or improved user comfort), if the design is not holistic and well-integrated, and the building is not adequately maintained within operational parameters, there can be unintended consequences that may not manifest until well after construction. In recent years, there have been a series of rather significant fire losses associated in one way or another with choices made to meet societal objectives to be more environmentally sustainable and minimize the potential for climate change. These include numerous high-rise exterior façade fires around the world, notably the Grenfell Tower fire in London, the Dietz & Watson cold storage warehouse in Delanco, and a spate of fires in buildings under construction using lightweight timber framing. The work presented in this report represents an overview of risk methodologies, an investigation of state-of-the-art publications concerning the nexus between fire safety and sustainability, and the latest proof-of-concept and development of a model to foster sustainable and fire resilient choices in the design process of a building. The literature review has shown that while little is presently published concerning the nexus of sustainability and fire safety, some interesting investigations of sustainable and fire safe solutions have been found. Further, while the development of a complex hierarchical model to assess the sustainability and fire resiliency of different design choices is difficult, we have been able to make the first steps towards creating a framework to support decision making in the design of sustainable and fire resilient buildings as part of a larger framework to create a sustainable and fire resilient built environment (SAFR-BE). But rather than the whole built environment, the focus is on sustainable and fire resilient buildings (SAFR-B). The framework is built on an analysis of regulatory requirements (for fire safety) and green building systems (for sustainability), as well as the creation of an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) risk assessment methodology. The resultant scores in the SAFR-B framework are based on generous input from international experts in the field of fire safety and sustainability, while the weighting between attributes has been based on the project team’s expert input. The resultant proof-of-concept framework has been applied to a fictive case study of an apartment building from Malmö. The building itself is perhaps not particularly representative of US buildings, but the application of the framework could easily be generalized to US structures should such a case exist. The results of the study show that the framework can give guidance to the designer of the importance of various choices for fire safety and sustainability, in a relative sense. The model is not absolute. The comparisons are not expressed as absolute numbers, and comparisons between different buildings are neither possible at the moment (the model has been developed specifically for apartment buildings), nor recommended due to the inherent differences between different applications and buildings. Relative comparisons are really the only comparison that makes sense at this point. The development of the model and application to apartment buildings is a first proof-of-concept. More developmental work is needed, and several suggestions have been forwarded at the end of the report concerning future improvements. Perhaps most importantly, more expert input is needed. The more experts that give their input and the broader range of experts involved, the better the overall scoring of relative importance of different survey items will be. Greater expert input will improve the robustness of the model and can ultimately provide sufficient information to make comparisons between different buildings or different building contexts. Finally, the model has specifically been developed for apartment buildings. While this is a good starting point, there is a need to add different types of buildings and to expand apartment buildings to both low-rise and high-rise examples. Expanding the application of the model will also expand its usefulness and range. Ideally, future buildings should be designed with the SAFR-B framework as an obvious step (or multiple steps) in the design process.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Annan samhällsbyggnadsteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Other Civil Engineering (hsv//eng)

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