Student Accommodation, Ducie Court

The proposal was to provide three blocks of student accommodation arranged in flat-type arrangements to accommodate up to 858 students in three separate blocks.

Innovation Fire Engineering identified the issues requiring a fire engineered approach as extended travel distance within the flats of up to 12m, an open void in the fire fighting lobby, rooms with increased fire risk at upper levels, and the potential to assess the required level of fire resistance for the building.

Innovation Fire Engineering used various trial fire designs to assess the different issues and compared the proposed design with the code compliant equivalent.

The analysis allowed the fire resistance requirement for structural elements of the building to safely be reduced from 90 minutes to 60 minutes, enhanced levels of detection within the flats and an enhanced level of fire resistance within the flats was found to provide adequate compensation for the increased travel distance within some flats and the rooms with increased fire risk at upper levels. The provision of automatic opening vents enabled the voids to be acceptable and 24 hour monitoring of the fire alarm, increased levels of fire detection and fire resistance within the flats allowed a phased rather than simultaneous evacuation policy to be adopted.

Innovation Fire Engineering brought many advantages to the Ducie Court Development – cost savings (reduced structural fire resistance), design freedom (extended travel distances and use of voids) and less disruption to the occupants of the building in the event of fire (phased evacuation policy).

Additionally, we identified the removal of the requirement for two of the lifts in the development to be fire fighting lifts, to provide a large cost savings. Furthermore, we provide a cost effective solution to resolve fire service access issues around the blocks within the development.