The Buildings - Thesis Example

Similarly, since this movement occurs immediately after the ESTIDAMA (a component of Abu Dhabi Vision 2030) was officially launched in 2010, building regulations in Abu Dhabi were left behind and remain prescriptive and limited to traditional building design.

  The result of the Case Study evaluation on the other hand as shown in the following sections was made possible by the Pattern Matching technique, a method where emerging patterns in the result are compared with predicted or theoretical patterns.  

 The following sections are inferences based on data analysis result and overall understanding of facts, concluding statements for each issue, and the conclusion of this study regarding the need to integrate fire safety in sustainable design, the adaption and application of performance fire engineering design for sustainable buildings, identified barriers and potential solutions to problems in fire safety, sustainability, and law negatively affecting Abu Dhabi’s quest for sustainability.

• Inferences and Preliminary Conclusion
  • Fire Safety

The concern of the recent investigation is to clarify issues about fire safety levels of sustainable buildings in Abu Dhabi thus a comprehensive literature review fieldworker or survey was conducted. Information from literature review of hazards and risks associated with sustainable building suggest that there are indeed numerous performance related issues in sustainable buildings that must be given attention.

The study found the following evidence to support the conclusion.

1. Review of literature on fire safety issues in sustainable buildings

As discussed in Section 2.2.5, it is somewhat clear that green or sustainable building design at the time of this research downplayed role of fire protection in keeping the occupants safe from the deadly effects of fire. The most common intentions leading to violation of acceptable fire safety practices are:

• Most sustainable designs intend to maximize lighting for energy efficiency.
• They often tend to incorporate large and open spaces such as an atrium for natural ventilation.
• They tend to use thermal protection as part of energy saving design

Moreover, case studies of actual conflict between of energy saving design and fire safety suggest that most fires started from non-fire rated building insulation materials used for thermal protection. B. Case study of Abu Dhabi’s Fire Safety Practices for Sustainable Buildings Study of MASDAR City in Abu Dhabi suggest that it was built based on sustainable concept with passive and active environmental-friendly solutions that is now seen as fire safety problems. Using the hypothesis developed by this study in Chapter 1 and research methodology selected in Chapter 3, issues in the application of performance-based design in sustainable buildings in Abu Dhabi were investigated through selected case studies.

The results and finding of this study shows: The current sustainable building design and urban planning practices is dominated by prescriptive regulations and influenced by sustainable, compact city, and zero emissions concepts respectively. The current building safety practices still remain prescriptive despite adoption of customised international building codes. The study also found that climatic characteristics of Abu Dhabi should be given careful attention as these could affect the successful operation of fire safety measures particularly those in green or sustainable buildings.

The move towards sustainable city as indicated in Abu Dhabi 2030 Plan is relevant and in the right direction. This study found the use of prescriptive fire safety codes in sustainable buildings somewhat irrelevant and incompatible considering the fact that existing prescriptive provisions are not intended for such building. Study of four countries’ building codes suggests that: Most of them are prescriptive except New Zealand. The main similarity between the other three is the presence of deemed-to-satisfy and alternative solution clause which in essence is providing opportunity for fire engineering approaches and performance-based design.

This study also found a number of issues regarding the application of performance-based design in Abu Dhabi and these include issues associated to compliance, review, evaluation, approval, inspection, and final turnover of works done based on PBD. Areas of sustainable buildings that are typically in conflict with fire safety include internal building voids or atriums facilitating vertical movement of smoke and heat through the building. Another is the use of double skin facade that further complicates fire fighting through air flow variations, flame spread, and fire fighter access.

Another is natural ventilation which is often responsible for carrying fresh air and creating high pressure area on the windward and low pressure on the leeward side of the building. The use of stack effect and wind induced air flow action increase rate of smoke spread and significant problems in smoke control. The thermal insulation being used for building envelope is also problematic as it greatly shortens the time to flashover. Similarly, the use of external air for smoke control by either mechanical or natural ventilation can affect the smoke movement due to buoyancy, thermal expansion, stack effect, and wind pressure that eventually getting stronger with fire.

About Masdar City in Abu Dhabi: There are several real-life case studies of the above mentioned conflicts but the most significant is demonstrated in Masdar City. These conflicts are more evident as aside from adopting a sustainable concept, Masdar City is compact with narrow streets and closely built infrastructures preventing access to fire fighters and appliances. Moreover, Abu Dhabi’s fire safety regulations have no provisions for sustainable design and construction and existing prescriptive codes that inconsistent with sustainable design.

Surprisingly, the local code requires a 6 metre separation between buildings but investigation shows that there is only 4.7 metre of space between buildings in Masdar City. Note that these conflicts are just the general one there are other problems such as water source for fighting, landing valves, stand pipes, and others.