IFE/BRE Fire & Sustainability Workshop - Thursday 14th October 2010

The BRE Innovation Park at Garston, Watford was the setting for a one day workshop in partnership with the IFE, on matters surrounding and relating to the future delivery of sustainable buildings and communities and how this can be achieved within the UK and around the world.

Sustainability and the protection of the environment are topics which are driving the agendas of many organisations, in particular government departments and the construction industry, but fire safety and fire protection is not yet appearing on these.

The IFE 2010 AGM & Conference which was held in London highlighted many of the changes in building and material technologies, which have major implications for the fire sector: in design (fire engineering), fire safety management, firefighting and fire investigation.

The workshop started with a warm welcome and introduction from John Woodcock, International President of the IFE and was followed by four presentations

1. A BREEAM perspective by Alan Yates, Technical Director of BRE Global - "sustainable construction has many drivers and is here to stay. It will impact on: building design, construction and operation. The ability to avoid, manage and fight fires in the future".

2. An Architect's perspective by Peter Caplehorn, Technical Director of Scott Brownrigg - "we have problems in current construction: timber frame, interpretation, material specification, risk assessments, adequate guidance and supervision. These are amplified when applied to projects where sustainable values are applied".

3. A Structural Fire Engineer's perspective by Tom Lennon, Principal Consultant, Fire Safety, BRE Global - "the increasing use of combustible materials within the fabric of modern buildings to improve energy consumption and combustibility gives rise to an increased risk of disproportionate damage in the event of a fire".

4. A Fire Safety Overview by Martin Shipp, Technical Development Director, Fire Safety, BRE Global - "we need to ensure that the fire issues are dealt with logically and professionally and not subject to simple commercial pressures".

To view each of the presentations above, please click on the links provided.

Following the presentations the workshop delegates were split into groups of 10 for a detailed two hour tour of the BRE Innovation Park. The Park features seven of the world's most sustainable houses (built to the Code for sustainable homes), a health centre of the future and over 300 different construction innovations and emerging technologies, as well as a state of the art community landscape design area.

After a well deserved lunch and five minutes to ease the sore feet from the numerous stairs that were climbed during the tour of the Park, the workshop recommenced. Each group was given the opportunity to highlight the main issues and problems surrounding "sustainability" concepts in buildings and to come up with possible solutions to these.

The attendees agreed that a further workshop should be scheduled for early February 2011 to review possible suggestions on this important subject and to see how things have progressed. The IFE will schedule a furthur date with details of the next workshop, which will be advertised in the December/January 2010 Fire Risk Management Journal and also on the IFE website.

Please keep an eye out for these details!