VIEWS OF BUILDING PROFESSIONALS ON THE IMPLEMENTATION ASPECTS OF FIRE SAFETY ENGINEERING APPROACH IN BUILDING DESIGN - A PRELIMINARY STUDY

In theory, the Hong Kong practice permits alternative approaches to the building codes so long as equivalent safety standard can be demonstrated. If a designer has not followed the guidance, such as the fire safety standard prescribed in the fire codes, it will be evidenced that the design has not complied with the regulations. It will then be for the designer to demonstrate by other means that the design has satisfied the requirements. Traditionally, a building designer will provide qualitative argument to justifying that equivalent standard has been provided. As buildings become complex and demonstration of equivalency by qualitative judgement becomes difficult. The recently published fire codes in Hong Kong recognize the use of quantitative evaluation in the form of fire engineering approach to justify the alternative design. The codes provide preliminary framework of what should be considered in the fire safety engineering study. However, the Government has yet neither published guidance to explain the rationale behind each prescriptive requirement nor engineering guide to illustrate the acceptable evaluation methods. The Building Authority has also pointed out that there is no accreditation of fire safety consultants to carry out fire engineering studies. Authorized Persons who are considered as the building projects managers under the Hong Kong Buildings Ordinance should assume the pivotal role in the consultative procedures when the fire strategy and fire engineering design is developed. However, the Authorized Persons, who may usually be architects, structural engineers, or building surveyors, are normally not trained in fire engineering. Apart from technical issues, problems in the implementation stage may be the practicability of carrying out fire safety engineering studies, the liability of the building professionals and etc. Surveys are carried out to analyze the views of Authorized Persons who is considered as the representative group of building professionals. This paper presents the initial findings of the survey. The objectives of this paper are to examine the problems in implementing the fire safety engineering study.