Factory roof structure and automatic fire protection in building system .
Arising from these practices , pertinent questions that need to be addressed include :
1 . Which fire / life safety building code requirements most often come into conflict with the application of innovative green building design elements and why ?
2 . How can a design team address these building fire / life safety concerns and satisfy local building and fire authority requirements while incorporating desired sustainable design elements into a project ?
Regardless , the paramount need is to ensure the primary objectives of fire protection engineering are not compromised when adopting any green design approach .
Prescriptive Code Compliance Process
Designers , builders , and other stakeholders and practitioners in the built environment face the challenge of providing sustainable design elements while at the same time meeting building and fire code requirements .
Sustainable design building elements , materials or methods of construction may face questions and concerns from local building and fire authorities . Design teams may need to demonstrate to the fire authority how these innovative sustainable design elements comply with the prescribed code requirements or comply with the intent of the code provisions .
At the onset of a green project development , designers are often confronted with the challenge of answering the following questions :
1 . What are the sustainable design elements that can be shown to be in strict compliance with the prescribed code provisions ?
2 . Which are the sustainable design elements that may not meet the prescribed code provisions and will have to be proved to be equivalent ?
The key for the design team at this juncture is to recognise that all construction projects need to satisfy the building and fire code provisions . It is also vital to understand that innovative approaches to building design elements need to be identified early in the design of a project . Creative , integrated prescriptive code compliance can be part of a sustainable design project as long as the design team discusses code compliance issues early in the design process .
In essence , prescriptive code compliance in the design process requires an integrated , collaborative effort by all the project design team members including the owner , architect , M & E engineers , C & S engineers , fire protection engineers ( for performance-based approach ),
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