Enhancing Effective Fire Safety in Buildings Using Design

Abstract

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 since it seemed to avoid the likely destruction of everything and everyone that a person has possessed or has ever loved.