The Italian National Guidelines for the fire safety of facades

Abstract

Traditionally, the facades' design buildings where once only focused on architectural or aesthetic purposes (in addition, of course, of whether protective issues). Nowadays, thanks to the technological development of the construction works and the use of new types of materials, the facades' design should also address fire safety related aspects. In Europe and especially in Italy - where the types of building façades are built with windows of small surface and natural stone coverings - the green building/sustainability movement has resulted in the development of new concepts in facade or curtain wall design that intended to enhance the energy efficiency of building façades. These new building surfaces are covered by extensive panelling fitted with insulating materials or by wide glass surfaces, capable of carry out the most diverse purposes including, just to name a few: energy reduction, climate comfort, recovery of electricity through photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight into electricity, large space for advertising purpose. One of the main fire safety goal for a building design is to restrict the vertical fire spread so that the smoke and flames are limited to the fire origin floor. The new building façade and curtain wall topologies could overwhelms concerns for fire safety, therefore the Italian National fire service has released a Fire Code Guideline in order to address the fire safety design for an high rise building façade. This paper aims to show the guideline contents and the related fire safety façades concerns. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2013.