The sustainability challenge of product information quality in the design and construction of facades: lessons from the Grenfell Tower fire (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Building Pathology and Adaptation
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore contemporary attitudes amongst UK construction professionals regards fire safety post the Grenfell Tower disaster. Specifically, the research examines practitioner’s perceptions of fire safety design, material specification, construction and maintenance of high-rise blocks throughout a building’s whole life cycle. Design/methodology/approach A multi-methodology approach was adopted that utilises a mix of research methods. Extant literature and media content is used as a secondary data source, providing a more insightful interpretivist analysis – the results of which guided the development of the survey’s main question set. Primary survey data are sourced from structured interviews and questionnaires completed by participating industry professionals and built environment undergraduate students using non-representative sampling methods. In addition, a Grenfell Tower special advisory panel member was interviewed to add further validity to...
ENABLING SUSTAINABLE DESIGN THROUGH AN INFORMATION FRAMEWORK
Services that architects provide are no longer constrained to offering inspiring design solutions to client needs and whims; their services are beginning to spread across domains to ensure that proposed designs are also 'green' and/or 'sustainable'. Indeed, design and delivery of sustainable buildings is gradually gathering momentum, manifest in the way that building performance and functionality are being viewed within an overall ecological context. The ongoing transformation from the traditional to a sustainable building design process is no longer a question of whether to build but rather how (Kibert 2005). Of the many tools available to aid sustainable design, building rating systems offer guidelines and means for comparing and benchmarking buildings performance (Fowler and Rauch 2006). The nature of sustainable building rating systems is such that they are evolving—in this respect this paper describes research that engages this paradigm through the deployment of...
Due to fast urban and architectural growth worldwide, many codes have been created to organize the design and construction process at various levels. The fire and life safety code governs building regulations to prevent fires and save lives. Since the architect plays critical roles in communities and with stakeholders, the architectural design process, phases, and deliverables go through a number of stages that interact with and integrate with the fire and life safety code. One of the primary criteria that could delay the architectural design process is the late implementation of life safety architectural aspects. This research aims to explore and investigate the architects' knowledge related to the fire code and life safety aspects and how it impacts on the architectural design process, within its phases, and whether having or leakage of this knowledge may cause or effect on the design progress. Accordingly, the study used qualitative and quantitative methods, qualitative through the analysis of different sources of literature review and quantitative through structured interviews with architects, experts, and other relevant stakeholders, to determine the impact of architects' knowledge about code requirements on the project design process and how this could be solved to avoid gaps in the design process and project progress delays. The overall results of this research indicated that architects, especially in Egypt, have a lack of knowledge of architectural aspects of the fire and life safety code, and most architects aren't implementing aspects of fire in the design process, which delays the architectural design process. The results' analysis suggests that to speed up design, architects could receive fire safety training from the Civil Defence, Engineers Syndicates, the Housing and Building National Research Center (HBRC), and self-learning.
Enhancing Effective Fire Safety in Buildings Using Design
2021
Achieving optimum design solutions, with regards to fire and fire safety conditions, is an uncompromisable endeavour. As such, considering the destruction that has been occurring if treated lightly, every architectural design must consciously and constantly bear in mind, the goal of avoiding such disaster. Resting on this premise, this paper aimed at identifying major design approaches that need to be adopted to achieve optimum fire safety in buildings, right from the design stage. The paper adopted a narrative literature review approach to identify grounded design considerations related to fire and fire safety. One of the findings was that a design must be carried out with the conscious intention to provide a high level of safety affordances to occupants of buildings and their properties in case of fire outbreaks. Much of the affordances should be related to smoke, which tends to be more dangerous than the fire itself. The paper is highly significant for any architectural design si...
Optimizing the Sustainable Aspects of the Design Process through Building Information Modeling
Sustainability, 2021
More than thirty years after the definition of sustainable development, the commitment to protect the planet has been renewed, and all sectors of human activity have been called to contribute to this critical challenge of our time. Therefore, the construction sector can also make an essential contribution. Designers are called upon to modify their actions to consider the environmental, social, and economic impacts during the entire life cycle of construction. The digital revolution could be a suitable opportunity for a profound renewal oriented towards sustainability. The new digital technologies and the increased computing power are useful for managing the increasing complexity in current projects and supporting collaboration between the many experts involved. The presented research analyzes the current state and identifies the signs of change and the cues to imagine possible virtuous complicity between sustainable development goals and the digital revolution’s potential, which is ...
Towards sustainable design: Integrating data from operation of buildings in design practices
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 2020
In recent years, the Danish Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry has shown increased interest in sustainability in contributing to the achievement of the UN 17 sustainable development goals. Sustainable design is, however, hampered by lack of information and weak data integration especially in the early design stages of building projects. In order to overcome these challenges, research has proposed transferring information from operation to the design of new buildings. By conducting a case study analysis in a Danish architecture firm, this research aims to explore the form of collaboration between architects and building client, and how this collaboration can support or inhibit the calculations of life cycle costing as an essential part of sustainable design practices. The data, for this exploratory research, are gathered through direct observations, surveys and semi-structured interviews. Structured analysis is used as the theoretical methodology to map the flow of d...
Buildings
Sustainability demands have changed the building design nature increasing the diversity of requirements, activities, agents, and tools. The aim of this paper is to investigate the sources of challenges in the relationship between architectural and engineering (AE) design firms and clients for promoting sustainability in the building design. Additionally, this study investigated the building information modeling (BIM) deployment by the firms that supports sustainability. The research method adopted is qualitative and participatory, based on focus groups. Two groups were interviewed, eight AE design firms and six developers and/or construction companies, gathering the points of view of service providers and their clients. The identified sources of challenges around sustainability include lack of communication and imprecision of definition, requirements, and scope. Additionally, management issues include performance evaluation, traditional work relationships, tools, and processes that ...
Product data and building assessment – flow of information
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 2019
The design, realisation and operation of buildings should be based on the principles of sustainable development, and consequently on the goal to conserve natural resources as a critical aspect of it. To this end, improving the resource efficiency in all building-related activitiesfrom design to end-of-lifeis necessary. Yet, such an effort cannot be fully successful if not based on comprehensive information. On the architects' side, there is a need for information on construction products to be fed into the assessment of building design variants. The exchange of information between product and building level is a topic dealt with in European (CEN TC 350) and International (ISO TC59 SC17) standardization. However, the demand on product information goes beyond the content of an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). It is therefore necessary to discuss what are the additional needs for product information and how to provide this information to be practical for a building assessment. Finally, it is necessary to discuss how buildings should be documented along their life cycle to provide useful information for third parties. Third parties areamong others-valuation professionals, facility managers or demolition/dismantling companies. An approach to building files/building information packs will be presented, where information on the physical composition of the building and its material flows in the life cycle (material inventory) becomes an integral part. With regard to standardization, how to determine and present a recycling potential of a building will be discussed. Current research projects in Germany will inform the discussion.
2010
On the morning of May 13, 2008, a fire that started in a coffee vending machine on the 6 th floor of the 13-story Faculty of Architecture Building at the Delft University of Technology (TUD), Delft, the Netherlands, quickly developed into an extreme loading event. Although all building occupants evacuated safely, the rapid fire spread severely impacted fire department operations, allowing the fire to burn uncontrolled for several hours, eventually resulting in the structural collapse of a major portion of the building. With the fire continuing to burn after collapse, damage was ultimately significant enough that the building had to be demolished. Collecting and archiving data from this fire is extremely important because structural collapse of high-rise buildings due to fire has historically been quite rare. There are several reasons for this, from the overall infrequency of fire ignition in high-rise buildings, to the combination of structural fire resistance of the frame, fire-rated compartment barriers, automatic fire suppression systems, and fire department suppression activities generally associated with the fire protection strategy for high-rise buildings. This event offers a unique opportunity to study the performance of a codecompliant high-rise building in a major fire wherein the outcome was different than might typically be expected. In order to facilitate analyses of this event, researchers in the United States, under a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) from the National Science Foundation (NSF award 0840601), teamed up with researchers from TNO and Efectis in the Netherlands, along with Prof. Kees van Weeren of the TUD Faculty of Architecture, to collect data on the fire and collapse. A summary of data collected and outcomes of preliminary analyses are presented. BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION Fire in high-rise buildings is rare: structural collapse due to fire even more so. When the fire and partial collapse of the Faculty of Architecture Building at TUD occurred, it was recognized that this event provided an opportunity to form a multidisciplinary , multinational team to collect data that could be helpful to researchers, engineers and building regulatory officials understand the combination of building and fire characteristics which combined to result in this loss and to develop recommendations aimed at helping to prevent such events in the future. The team was soon formed, consisting largely of the authors, and a plan was developed for collecting and archiving data and information about the building and the event [1].
Journal of construction project management and innovation, 2017
Building information modelling (BIM) has been proposed as a technology-enabled process for more efficient and effective management of information in digital and virtual environments. Many challenges, however, exist and undermine its effective implementation within the construction industry. The identification of these challenges is critical to the successful implementation and adoption of BIM, especially in view of many implementation risks. Despite the critical role of the design phase to project delivery and BIM usage, few studies have sought to interrogate the challenges faced by designers and the solutions that are being applied to address them. To address this gap, this study aimed to identify and classify challenges faced by designers with particular focus on proposed solutions for alleviating the identified challenges. Through a qualitative research strategy, semi-structured interviews were used to solicit perspectives of UK design professionals on design profession-specific BIM implementation challenges and solutions. Findings reveal that challenges are mostly organisational and external environmental issues with rather cursory allusion to technological challenges which are widely reported in the literature. The solutions identified for alleviating designers' BIM implementation challenges include earlier input and integration from whole supply chain as well as more support institutional support and facilitation. The promotion of open-BIM standards, tailored insurance as well as principal supplier leadership were also proposed as viable solutions to BIM implementation challenges. Variations in the challenges and proposed solutions appear to differ across different categories of firms investigated in this study, particularly in relation to the cost of implementation.