International Journal on Architectural Science, Volume 4, Number 3, p.

141-146, 2003

ASSESSING FIRE SAFETY PROVISIONS FOR SATISFYING GREEN OR

SUSTAINABLE BUILDING DESIGN CRITERIA: PRELIMINARY
SUGGESTIONS

C.L. Chow and W.K. Chow

Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

(Received 26 February 2003; Accepted 21 July 2003)

ABSTRACT

The construction industry all over the world is moving towards constructing ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ buildings.
To satisfy the proposed assessment criteria, new architectural features and concepts, new mechanical and
electrical systems, and appropriate energy and environment management scheme have been proposed. However,
fire safety aspects have not yet been assessed properly. There had been numerous ‘conflicts’ between the ‘green
or sustainable building design’ and ‘fire safety provisions’.

In this paper, an assessment scheme on whether the fire safety provisions have been designed and operated by
paying attention to criteria for green or sustainable buildings based on the following is proposed:

 Passive building construction.

 Active fire protection system.
 Fire safety management.

Total mark of the scheme is 100, with 50 marks allocated to items on fire safety management, 25 marks to
passive building construction, and 25 marks to active fire protection system. Views from local professionals are
now sought. Marks for each item are then tuned after summarizing their feedbacks.

1. INTRODUCTION There had been numerous arguments on whether

Most of the professionals in the construction
industry are dealing with green buildings or
sustainable buildings in advanced countries
including Hong Kong. ‘Green buildings’ are of
great interest to advanced countries towards the end
of the last century. Now, this is extended further to
‘sustainable buildings’ [e.g. 1]. Although the
concepts behind the two are different as green
building deals with ‘relative scale’ to a typical
building in a region, and sustainable building is
more ‘absolute’ on controlling energy and mass
flows internationally, the assessment procedure is
roughly the same [2].
building assessment methods should be focused on
environmental performance or sustainability [e.g.
2,4]. However, the most important part on the
‘safety’ aspect has not yet clearly spelled out [5].
Note that most likely, prescriptive fire safety codes
are not updated frequently. In fact, some new
buildings with ‘green’ features had failed to satisfy
those prescriptive codes in the past few years. The
hidden adverse effects on safety of those ‘green
building’ designs in Hong Kong had been pointed
out [e.g. 6]. Similar to any other design [7] for fire
safety provisions, three areas have to be considered
also for ‘green buildings’ or ‘sustainable buildings’
[8]:

Basically, works should be carried out in three  Passive building construction

areas [e.g. 3] to provide ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’
buildings:
 Architectural features including building
construction element.
 Electrical and mechanical systems to give
comfortable environment, but the system
would use energy, directly or indirectly.
 Management including energy management,
environmental management and fire safety
management.
Passive building constructions such as
compartmentation, fire resistance construction,
means of escape for occupants and means of
access for firefighters have to be provided for
fire protection. The objectives [9-11] are to
reduce the chance of having an accidental fire
by making the building materials and
components difficult to ignite. Even if the
material is ignited, small amount of heat will
be given out at the early stage of a fire. If a
fire occurs, the spreading rate should be slow.

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It is targeted to confine the fire within the
place of origin without affecting the adjacent
areas. The building structure should be able
to stand the fire for some time so that
occupants can evacuate.
 Active fire protection system
Active fire protection systems are for
detecting a fire, giving early warning and
reporting to the management and fire brigade,
and also attempting to control the fire. Three
terms [e.g. 12] should be distinguished clearly:
‘control’ means the heat release rate of fire is
not allowed to grow with a rapid rate;
‘suppression’ means the heat release rate is
reduced; ‘extinguishment’ means the burning
is stopped. Systems for achieving the
objectives as in above have to be clearly
spelled out, especially in tall buildings where
only fire alarm and detection system, fire
hydrant system and hosereel system are
normally required [e.g. 13]. Water is used
extensively and must be designed to satisfy
the water conservation criteria for green
buildings. Smoke management system
necessary for basements, car parks or big halls
should be design carefully as smoke
discharged would give environmental adverse
effects. Gas protection systems should be
designed carefully, but might only be installed
in buildings of special uses. Even so, total
flooding system with agents giving
greenhouse effects (measured by global
warning potential GWP) and damaging the
upper atmospheric ozone layer (measured by
ozone depletion potential ODP) should be
avoided.
 Fire safety management
Passive building construction and active fire
protection system are the ‘hardware’
provisions as in a computer system. These
might not necessarily provide adequate fire
safety. Good ‘management’ [14] schemes
(like good software in a computer system)
should be provided in a ‘total fire safety
concept’. Basically, a fire safety plan [e.g. 15]
can be prepared by the building operation
team, which includes a maintenance plan; a
staff training plan; a fire prevention plan; and
a fire action plan.
The first two areas are similar to ‘computer
hardware’ in information technology. The last area
is similar to ‘software programming’. Good design
of safety management scheme can give adequate
fire safety eventhough the ‘hardware provisions’
are not updated to match with the advances in fire
International Journal on Architectural
technology. For example, it is difficult to allocate
spaces in old buildings to house a sprinkler water
tank if such facility is suddenly required.
In this paper, how fire safety provision can cope
with ‘green or sustainable buildings’ design criteria
following the above three areas is highlighted. An
assessment scheme is proposed for judging whether
the fire safety design complies with the green or
sustainable building design criteria. Further field
surveying studies should be carried out.
2. ACTIONS ON THE THREE AREAS
It was proposed recently [8] that ‘green buildings’
criteria can be satisfied by taking appropriate
actions as:
 For passive building construction
- Recycling waste materials might give
adequate fire resistance period for
compartmentation.
- Evacuation paths can be integrated with
vertical shafts for providing natural
ventilation in highrise buildings with air
flow driven by stack effect.
- Application of nanocomposites as
intumescent fire retardants (IFRs) [e.g. 16]
would reduce using excessive amount of
halogen to stop key combustion reactions
in the burning process.
 For active fire protection system
- Substitution of halon gas protection
system by water mist fire suppression
system [e.g. 12] would give better
environmental protection and reduce the
amount of water used in traditional
sprinkler systems.
- Clean agents with zero ODP and low
GWP such as heptafluoropropane [e.g 17]
should be considered.
- Recycling water to be used for traditional
water systems.
- Using intelligent fire detection systems
integrated with local application system
instead of total flooding system can
determine the type of accidental fire and
calculate the adequate amount of
extinguishing agent, which would help in
limiting the use of agent and reducing the
potential damaging effect to the
environment.
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 International Journal on Architectural Science

 On fire safety management

Preparing a good fire safety plan [14,15] with
clear procedures on maintenance plan, staff
training plan, fire prevention plan and fire
action plan would reduce the chance of
having an accidental fire. Even when such a
fire occurs, good fire safety management
would ensure that the fire can be confined
within a small area. Appropriate amount of
fire suppression agents would be discharged
at the right time. Toxic gases such as carbon
monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) and
nitrogen oxides (NOx) generated would be
limited to low level with little damaging
effect to the environment.
Taking the above suggested actions [e.g. 8] on the
three aspects would satisfy the following criteria on
‘green buildings’ [e.g. 18,19]:
 Energy saving
- Reduce the use of energy for operating the
mechanical heating and cooling systems
with better building thermal insulation
(such as reducing the overall thermal
transfer value OTTV in Hong Kong) [20]
of the building envelope; but transition to
flashover in case of an accidental fire
while using those thermal lagging designs
must be considered.
- Air flow paths for providing natural
ventilation [21] integrated with evacuation
design [9,10].
 Water consumption
- Use less amount of water to suppress a fire
by a water mist system.
- Use of waste or recycle water for
traditional water systems.
 Environment protection
- Reduce the level of pollutants such as CO,
CO2 and NOx discharged from a fire.
- Use of clean agents such as
heptafluoropropane.
- Use less amount of extinguishing agent by
designing the system properly without
oversizing the requirement.
- Use of halogen-free IFRs [16].
- Reduce the amount of fire retardants by
nanocomposites.
 Waste management
- Recycling more waste materials for
construction elements with adequate fire
resistance period [e.g. 11].
A pictorial presentation is shown in Fig. 1.

Hardware
 Use of waste materials for
 compartmentation to have
 adequate fire resistance period
  Nanocomposites as fire
Passive Building
Construction  retardants
Software  
 Integration of evacuation path
with openings for natural
 ventilation provision
 Reduce the chance of fire
occurrence  Fire Safety   Using less amount of water by
 Management 
 Limit the fire size water mist system
 Reduce the emission of   
CO, CO2 and NOx  Use waste or recycle water for
 traditional water systems
 
 Active Fire   Use clean agent with zero ODP
Protection System  and low GWP
  Local application system instead
 of total flooding system

 Intelligent fire detection system
 to discharge adequate, not more


nor less, agents

Fig. 1: Overall view of fire safety on green building designs

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 International Journal on Architectural

3. PROPOSED MARKING SCHEME through interviews. The proposed assessment

To assess whether the fire safety provisions are
designed with reference to green or sustainable
building criteria, a marking scheme is proposed as
in Table 1. Note that all the items as suggested in
above were allocated with marks based on fire
professional experience, local demand, views from
building owners and occupants, feasibility of
implementation, ease of operation, disturbance to
normal operation of the building and of course, the
associated cost. This scheme had been discussed
preliminarily with some building professionals
scheme is now presented for further comments
from the general public. The marking scheme will
be revised according to the comments and feedback.
A total mark of 100 is recommended. Since
software management is so important, therefore it
is assigned with 50 marks. On the hardware
provisions, equal marks of 25 are allocated to the
two items on passive building construction and
active fire protection as they are of equal
importance.

Table 1: Mark distribution

Item Action Point

Hardware: 50 Passive building  Use of waste materials for compartmentation 10

construction: 25 to give adequate fire resistance period
 Integration of evacuation path with openings 10
for natural ventilation provision
 Nanocomposites as fire retardants for 5
protecting insulation materials with foam
 Use of asbestos for fire protection or thermal -5
lagging
Active fire protection  Using less amount of water by water mist 5
system: 25 system
 Use waste or recycle water for traditional 5
water systems
 Use clean agent with zero ODP and low GWP 5
 Local application system instead of total
flooding system 5
 Intelligent fire detection system to discharge
adequate, not more nor less, agents 5
 Use of chemical agents with ODP
 Oversize the water system -5
 Design of smoke exhaust system without -5
smoke treatment plant -5

Software: 50 Fire safety  Good maintenance plan to ensure passive 10

management: 50 building construction elements are in proper
order; and active fire protection systems are
checked regularly
 Reduce the chance of fire occurrence with 10
proper fire prevention plan
 Limit the fire size with good fire action plan 10
 Reduce the emission of CO, CO2 and NOx by 20
adequate staff training in order not to use the
wrong system

 Storage of excessive combustibles with -10

potential to give big fire, if the building is not
used as a godown

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 International Journal on Architectural Science
Note that the marks allocated are for assessing
whether the fire safety provisions are designed with
consideration to green or sustainable buildings.
That does not imply that buildings with low scores
are not safe. This is only a reflection that more
attention can be paid on improving the green or
sustainability aspects. Because of that, negative
marks are proposed for fire safety provisions with
potential damage to the environment. Using
chemical agents such as halon for gas protection
systems is an example.
Basically, a fire safety plan should be worked out
as described in above. In the fire prevention plan,
there should be management schemes in reducing
the chance of having an accidental fire. All the
items such as low-cost power supply adaptors for
converting voltage from 110 to 220 V or vice versa,
should be replaced regularly. In the staff training
plan, staff should be trained not to use the wrong
extinguishers nor discharging too much agents.
This would also reduce the emission rate of gases
such as CO, CO2 and NOx. A good fire action plan
would ensure that staff can take appropriate action
to limit the fire size.
On the passive building construction design, use of
waste materials with appropriate fire retardants
would give construction elements such as partition
materials with adequate fire resistance. Natural
ventilation provision is now commonly designed in
green buildings. Some of the air flow paths would
be constructed in the vertical directions for tall
buildings. Evacuation paths can be integrated with
those vertical ventilation shafts.
On the active fire protection systems, adequate
water, not more nor less, should be used. Water
mist fire suppression system is a good candidate,
though it should be assessed properly as an ill-
designed system would not be able to extinguish a
fire rapidly. It might even ‘enhance’ combustion
while acting on some fuels. Large quantity of
water would be required for traditional water
hosereel or fire hydrants systems in comparing with
water mist system. Alternative sources such as
waste water, recycle water and rain water should be
considered in operating them.
Wherever gas protection systems are used, local
application system instead of total fluidizing
system should be considered first. Overflooding
the whole space with chemical agents such as CO 2
would be hazardous to the environment. Intelligent
fire detection system can be used so that it would
not just detect a fire and give warning, but also
instruct to take appropriate actions such as
commanding a water gun in an atrium to act at the
fire with correct angles and discharge flow rates. A
video fire detection system would be very helpful.
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Actually, all the items can be divided into design
and operation issues with responsibilities taken care
of by the building designer and the facilities
managers respectively.
4. CONCLUSION
An assessment scheme is proposed for inspecting
whether fire safety provisions in buildings satisfy
the criteria for ‘green or sustainable buildings’.
Both design consideration and operation schemes
are included. Areas of interest to the building
services engineering industry, i.e. environment
protection, energy saving, water conservation and
waste management are outlined.
Basically, three aspects [e.g. 3,7,8] on passive
building construction, active fire protection system
and fire safety management should be considered.
Fire safety management [14,15] is even more
important than the other two [9-11,13]. The
concept is analogous to using good ‘software’ in
controlling ‘hardware’ in a computer system. Note
that staff training is a key element.
The proposed scheme would help the industry in
designing and operating fire safety provisions for
buildings towards the green or sustainable criteria
[1,2,18]. Once again, those buildings with lower
grades do not mean they are not safe in a fire. This
is a measure on the design towards green or
sustainable buildings. The attributes concerned and
weighting of each parameter are just proposed for
writing up a more detailed marking scheme.
Comments are welcome and in fact, the decision
making depends on the policy of the authority,
responsibilities of the professionals and as well, the
demand from the society. As stated in the literature
[e.g. 1], collective action of attempting to protect
the environment, even for controlling big fires with
small chances to occur, would make the earth clean
and continue to survive as a ‘living planet’.
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