Building Design for Means of Escape - Assignment Example

This project aims at reviewing the literature that has been developed to explain this crucial topic and help building engineers come up with effective fire safety means of escape in an apartment building.

2.0 Requirements of UK building regulation:

As a requirement, the design of the building should allow for easy horizontal escape in a fire situation. The British standards require that in an instance of a fire, a person should leave the building without being blocked by the fire or smoke. This should be achieved by moving towards the fire assembly point. This implies that there should be a means of escape for every building and building engineers are required by the UK Fire and Safety guidance on building design to consider this requirement when designing apartment buildings. In some instances like in an apartment building with a single stair condition, the standard permits the existence of a single escape route. However, the provision of an alternative route is important to avoid the population of the house from being trapped by the congestion of the escapes. I think this is a good alternative to having several means of escape when designing apartment buildings by building engineers to help in ensuring that the tenants in the building are able to vacate as fast as possible. The number of tenants in a building, therefore, becomes an important factor in designing for escape. Additionally, the intended use of the building will also affect the number and distance from the exit doors.

3.0 Evacuation strategies

The essence of any escape strategy in fire safety building engineering is to facilitate the easy vacating of occupants from the building in the event of any hazard like a fire tragedy.   This philosophy is simply targeted by all provisions and codes of means of safety. Thus making the escape routes available and ready for such a process is one of the main requirements of the fire safety regulations in the UK. Besides, all regulations and guidance emphasize the importance of the existence of means of escape in a building design to minimize fire risk to a reasonable level while the process of escape is going on in an efficient manner.

3.1 Simultaneous evacuation

In simple buildings, upon the discovery of fire, each individual will require to move from the fire zone to a more secure location. This can happen simultaneously and can include all the occupants of the building. There should be alternative exits available to the people inside a building. For instance the building design below, the escape routes are given in green. There are numerous exits to o the building and an individual at each point can take optional exits through the corridors. All the corridors have two or more exits according to the design plan below.

Figure 1, (Fire safe org, 2014)

This method of evacuation is called simultaneous evacuation. After the warning is given, everyone walks out of the building through exits. The major exits should be designed to carry a large number of people. Doors opening towards the outside of the building can be helpful in times of emergency with easy opening or breakthrough. The major exits can also have double doors to cater to the huge population that is likely to use them simultaneously in instance of a fire within the building, (Communities and Local Government, 2010)