The Safety Design in Buildings conference campaign is a GCC-wide initiative to debate safety standards and practices in the built environment. Experts are offering insights through presentations and panel discussions for an improved protection of people and assets in the Gulf.

The current cycle of events investigates fire safety considerations for malls and other high occupancy buildings with a view to strategy planning, material, egress and safety system requirements, which are constantly challenged by the ambitious infrastructure development in the GCC.

The conference brings Fire Consultants, Façade Designers and Testing Experts together with Safety System Suppliers to give an update on industry standards and provide a debating platform for trends and development.

Topics will include a discussion on an approach to fire safety design, using a fire engineering framework, to identify design goals and objectives in order to arrive at a holistic and practical fire safety design solution. In certain buildings this is often the only means to achieve the design intent and client goals. This will be followed by an introduction to design solutions and software tools utilised as an integral part of the approach including structural fire engineering analysis to evaluate fire resistance of structural members and frames, use of computational fluid dynamics for smoke management strategies, and evacuation modelling software.

There will also be a discussion on the safety for the ever increasing numbers of supertall buidlings. Enhancements for Supertall Buildings are beginning to be introduced in various international codes. Such enhancements often apply when buildings reach approximately 30 floors in height. This presentation highlights the fire safety challenges in supertall buildings and the fire safety features that are used to overcome such challenges.

Participants are invited to join and influence the panel agenda by submitting questions and topic proposals. All questions will be addressed live during the panel discussions.