Tags
architecture, commentary, design, fire, profession, protection, work
This week, the guest of our lecture was Tanju Ataylar who is fire consultant and also fire design consultant. He mainly mentioned the main techniques of fire safety. There are some main topics as fire prevention and fire protection. Fire protection includes passive protection and active fire protection systems as fire plugs. There are many aspects of the fire issue in a building such as preventing the smoke diffusion and fire protection. A building can be protected by two means (passive protection and the active fire protection services) which are not alternative to one other.
The exit features have basically three main parts such as widths of exit, number of exit and limitation on travel path. According to fire regulation, we have many different rules for constructions. It depends from education purposes buildings to museums.
Different levels of the fire development can be listed as protection, detection, controlling, extinguish…The code of the fire protection is based on the means of egress and fire compartmentation which means zoning the building into fire zones. It is important to notice that each zone actually means a duration of time that can keep itself safe during the fire.
Means of egress is defined as “a continuous and unobstructed way of travel from any point in a building or structure to a public way consisting of three separate and distinct parts.” The concept of means of egress is composed of three parts: the exit access, the exit, and the exit discharge. Then we talked about widths of exit, according to the regulation, there are too many variations to create fire exits. Also, the opening way of doors and limitation on travel path are quite important. We have discussed the details on the distances of the escape routes, the number of escapes, types, the door opening directions, common paths, staircases and the handrail dimensions, and fire halls.
In the second part of the lecture, we started with fire protection regulation, it includes how to escape from fire, which materials should be used in construction and so on. Because this regulation involves every type of building excluding special building such as the ministry of defence. They have their own rules.
He also mentioned that not only buildings but also carparks have different fire regulations. I think one of the most interesting parts of this regulation was about cinemas. If you put more seats on the same line, then you should use less platform and also follow different rules from regulations.