Fire Safety Engineering for Innovative and Sustainable Building Solutions

The construction sector faces many significant challenges while trying to introduce innovative and sustainable technology into a traditional industry driven to reduce costs. These challenges include providing solutions and catering for an aging population, new energy requirements and increased focus on sustainable construction, coping with changing climate loads, trade barriers due to national requirements, as well as ever more bold expressions of architectural creativity.

In June 2014 we are starting a three year Nordic project to address these issues. The project is led by SP where I am the project leader with great support from my new colleague David Winberg. The project members in the consortium represents all Nordic countries and a broad range of stakeholders such as:

• Standardization organisations - Danish and Norwegian Standardization, 
• Regulatory agencies - The Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning (Boverket), Iceland Construction Authority, Norwegian Building Authority (DIBK)
• Research organizations - The Danish Institute of Fire and Security Technology (DBI), Iceland Fire Research Institute, Lund University, SP Fire Research and SP Fire Research AS
• Fire consultancy companies - Brandskyddslaget, Briab, COWI, KK-Palokonsultti
• Construction companies - NCC

Nordic Innovation (web + twitter) is financing the 4.8 mNOK project with co-financing from the participating organizations and additional national financing from DIBK and other parties.

Performance-based codes, i.e. regulations and standards, have long been proven an effective way to facilitate innovation, and all of the Nordic countries have introduced performance-based building codes. However, the implementation of performance-based codes for fire safety has not been overly successful due to the lack of standardized performance-based methods and instruments to ensure high quality fire safety design. Fire safety design therefore too often relies on prescriptive and detailed regulations due to uncertainties and lack of acceptance of performance-based design. This per se is a barrier to innovative and sustainable building solutions.

Differences in regulations and practices in the Nordic countries are causing problems for the trade of products and services. The problem of trade barriers within the Nordic countries has been identified by the Nordic ministries and one goal is to create a unified Nordic construction market. The Nordic countries have strong cultural ties and other similarities, and are therefore in an ideal position to take the next step towards stronger cooperation.
The challenge in this three year project is to create performance-based standards for fire safety engineering that will facilitate the design processes and technical innovations in a robust and sustainable way. The project will thereby continue the successful Nordic cooperation that resulted in the recently published Nordic specification on fire safety engineering - INSTA 950.

Aims of the project:

• Creating new verification methods from a practical perspective to facilitate the implementation of performance-based codes and thereby increase the use of innovative design and technology in the industry, such as green buildings and sustainable technology. 
• New innovative construction products may be used in the built environment, proven to be fire safe yet able to meet the changing requirements of society.
• Nordic INSTA standards will be produced, providing the methods to facilitate innovative design by fire safety engineering methods and providing guidance on the process that lead to safe and innovative fire safety design.

To ensure that all different perspectives are reflected, the whole value-chain from regulations to end users is represented in the project, i.e. regulators, universities, institutes, standardization bodies, practitioners (consultants) and construction companies. The project will also facilitate social media (by this blog!) to gain input from a broader range of parties and stakeholders. All the blog posts for the Nordic Innovation project can be found here:
http://bit.ly/firesafenordic

During the project, the proposed INSTA standards will be tested in practical applications, i.e. real building projects, for evaluation before the work is finalized. The project will be completed in the summer of 2017.

This blog will give regular updates on the status of the project and we would like your comments! There will also be specific requests for input on certain questions during the course of the project - we look forward to you comments!