A study on the effect of project coordinators' knowledge on the use of performance-based fire safety engineering design in buildings

Abstract

Alternative fire safety design is prima fasciae permitted in Hong Kong's legislative context. It is further explicitly allowed through the 1995/1996 fire safety-related building codes, that is, a performance-based track has been initiated for the past decade. Hong Kong certainly cannot be regarded as the first city/country to engage in such an effort. United Kingdom, for instance, has explicitly allowed the use of fire engineering in the 1985 Building Regulations. However, it has been noted that the building projects' coordinators, architects, building surveyors, engineers, etc, do not usually have much knowledge on the use of fire safety engineering (FSE) design. Such a situation may affect the extent of projects using performance-based approach. This paper presents a simplified system dynamics model to examine the effect of project coordinators' awareness on the use of FSE design in Hong Kong. © 2008 PALGRAVE MACMILLAN LTD.