Fire Engineering for Sustainable Buildings in Abu Dhabi - Case Study Example

The quality and safety of the built environment start from construction or by following guidance for minimum standards quality and sustainability as indicated in existing building regulations. According to Fewings (2010:155), there is an ethical or moral responsibility in making sure that the built environment is safe to use and these include improvement in the sustainability of new buildings, ethical choice to increase energy efficiency, safety from toxic emissions, basic comfort, and occupants’ safety from fire.

Building regulations lay down some functional requirements that all buildings must satisfy include design and construction methods. Note that that these regulations are not always prescriptive but outline certain functional requirements (ex. “appropriate” means of escape in case of fire in UK Approved Documents B) that must be met (Furness & Muckett, 2007:175). Since the level of safety and protection in buildings reflects the general economic, social, and cultural features of society, building regulations are important component in the design of buildings (Hasofer et al, 2012:1).

In relation to safety and protection of buildings, prescriptive design was introduced but it lacks technical substantiation and unlikely to yield the most cost-effective design solutions or design that can sustain safety and protection in buildings. This is because according to Hasofer et al, (2012:1), prescriptive regulatory design limits the range of design choices and innovation in building design. In contrast, systematic engineering approach such as Performance-based design in fire engineering is more scientific, flexible, and likely to reduce the overall cost of providing fire safety and protection measures in building (Hasofer et al, 2012:1).

Some of the advantages of performance-based safety design cited by countries undergoing steady transition from prescriptive-based to performance-based such as UK, Australia, Japan, Canada, and others includes elimination of complexities associated with existing prescriptive regulations. Moreover, safety goals in performance-based design are clearly defined, innovation design solutions as well as international harmonization of regulation systems are allowed, cost-effectiveness and flexibility in designs are encouraged while introduction of new technologies are permitted (Yeoh & Yuen, 2009:426).

1.1.2 History and development of the term “sustainability” in buildings The term “sustainability” is widespread in many sciences, politics, business, and others and it is often used as synonyms for long-term, durable, and systematic (Ehnert, 2009:35). According to Ehnert (2009:35), the term “sustainability” can be derived from “sus-tenere”, a Latin meaning to maintain or strengthen and with suffix “able” referring to certain ability. Therefore, term “sustainability” may be interpreted as an ability to maintain something to an acceptable level such as Aristotle’s concept of a household as cited in Ehnert (2009:35) characterising the ability to produce and reproduce what is need for daily life or Muller-Christ & Remer (1999) as cited by same author as a corporate concept referring to the ability to balance resource consumption and reproduction.

Moreover, the adjective “sustainable” when link to the word “development” result to some form of growth that many expect is self-perpetuating and will not with not slow down or wither away (Towse,2003:183). In engineering, the term “sustainability” is associated with literacy or the ability to develop and maintain knowledge and skills (Sterling, 2012:6) and produce sustainable design such as prescriptive and performance-based measures predicting the building’s actual behaviour and performance (Levy, 2011:7).

According to Williams (2007:16), sustainable design last, flexible, endure, add to quality of the environment, clean air, water, and in renewing and protecting life. For instance, “green” building assign is an element of sustainable design and it incorporates ecologically sensitive materials and creates healthy and safe buildings through use of efficient mechanical systems and high-performance technologies. There is a widespread belief that the term “sustainability” originated from international environmentalist movement of the 1980s but according to Wilderer et al, (2006:6), the term was first used to describe a German initiative to conserve and sustain its forestry in 16th and 17th century.

The term “Forstliche Nachhaltigkeit” which was coined by engineer and forest scientist Hans Carl von Carlowitz means “Forest Sustainability” that came from the idea of sustainable forest management. Ulrich Grober, an independent German scholar traced the first use of “sustainability” in a book titled “Sylvicultura Oeconomica” (authored by Carlowitz) published in Leipzig Germany in 1713 addressing the increasing scarcity of wood for shoring up mines, building ships, constructing homes, and supplying fuel (Schmandt, 2010:11).

However, according to Bosselmann (2008:16), the idea of sustainability remains dormant for many years until its global debut in the late 1980s when the term “sustainability” was used by the Brundtland Commission (a body created by the United Nations in 1983) in 1987 to define its sustainable development agenda. By analysis, the term “sustainability” is often associated with environmental impact due to different usage of energy sources. For instance, according to Babalis (2008:75), new building design and energy saving including recovery and retrofitting of old buildings are often associated with regulations specifying use of green and sustainable building design concept.

These include green issues in the use of building materials, pollution due to construction, and energy-efficiency of buildings particularly in high-rise and high-density built environment. In case of fire safety, the term “sustainability” according to Murray (2012:6) refers to installation and maintenance of fire prevention and suppression equipment. According to the Fire Suppression Systems Association or FSSA as cited in Kubba (2012:467), statistics shows that 43% of business closed by fire never reopens and another 29% fail within three years.

For this reason, fire suppression systems are used in conjunction with smoke detectors and fire alarm systems to improve or increase public safety and reduce the environmental impacts of fire.