021 - Resilient design for firefighter safety with Ali Ashrafi

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Hello, and welcome to Fire Science Show Episode 21.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Great to have you here.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>As always, before we jump to the episode, I have some housekeeping items.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I recently observed a spike of new listeners to the podcast with them, recent episodes.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And I welcome you all.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I hope you have a great experience staying with the fire science show.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>On the site .Of.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>.The .Fire science, the firescienceshow.com.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I've started up selecting the episodes to assert them themes of the podcast.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So that allows you explore and experience the podcast in a more organized way.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And if you just joined us now, there's 20 great episodes waiting for you to be discovered.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Enjoy that I would also like to thank everyone who's supporting the podcast through the donations to buy me coffee on my webpage.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Thank you so much.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So for the episode today, Last week, I've hosted professor Brian Meacham, who said so much profound things about the shape of fire safety engineering, and how can we build it better together.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It was a great episode and a fantastic discussion for myself today.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I have an engine.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Who's actually putting this things into motion.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>He's someone who's dealt with wind engineering, earthquake engineering, fire engineering, and has a head full of ideas.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>How we turn the buildings we design slightly better environment for firefighters.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And the topic of today's episode is firefighter resiliency or buildings, resilience for firefighting.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And my guest is Ali Ashrafi, he is   with, , Thornton Tomasetti company, but also lined with a Colombia University where he is lecturing, wind, and earthquake engineering for 10 years.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And recently has started structural fire engineering course, and Ihope it's going great.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Ali has some great thoughts on how the design influences the battleground the firefighters will be fighting on.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>How can we think about the design in a way that promotes easier firefighting or safer firefighting and how it all aligns into the performance-based engineering framework.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So, If you've enjoyed the episode with Brad Mitchum, you will enjoy this one for sure.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Because it's like,  the actions that we need to take, to fulfill Brian's prophecies.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And if you haven't heard that episode of the Brian who shoots, but I'm sure you will like this one as well.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So,  let's not prolong this.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's welcome Malia roughy and these episodes.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So yeah, that's been Dane shore and jump into the episode.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Hello everybody.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I'm here

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>today with Ali Ashrafi who is with Thornton Tomasetti.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Hello Ali, good to have you here

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Hi Wojciech, thank you for having me.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Really happy to have you here.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And today we're discussing a very important subject of a structure, fire engineering, the firefighter resiliency in the buildings we design.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>But as you are a fire engineer who is located in the New York, we are three years after the 20 year

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>anniversary of 9/11.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>From

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>your view, like you're in the big apple, how did, this tragedy change the world of structural fire engineering and maybe structural fire engineering from your perspective?

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<v Ali Ashrafi>First of all, thank you for having me here.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And to some extent, the timing off it was a coincidence that we are at the 20th anniversary, but it does bring up a lot of the discussions and the events of that day and the collapse of the buildings.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Instructive in things that are similar, but things that are also different, obviously those events were unique.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>It was, we had collapses that were a result of many things, starting with massive planes, hitting buildings and taking a big part of this structure out and taking the fireproofing out and then a massive fire on multiple floors going with no response.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>So in some ways that's very different from any other building that we designed for.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>That's something to highlight that in any standard design that we're looking at, even more resilient designs, we're never designing for that level of damage to a building.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Having said that you look at what happened and there are certainly lessons learned.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>First of all, those buildings actually, Pretty resilient.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>A lot of people got out of those buildings in spite of the massive damage to the buildings.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And that highlights the role of structural stability and resilience of a building that can take some level of damage.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And then even in a typical case, that would be a massive fire in a building.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Right.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>You might have a fire that starts in your sprinklers.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>They don't control it and it grows.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And now you have something massive acting on your building.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>It highlights the importance of that resilience.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Certainly.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>It does highlight the importance of how the different pieces of design have to work together.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>So it was the building that stood for some duration.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>It was also, people were able to evacuate the building in that time period.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>When you look at what happened, almost anyone that was below the floors, where there was the impact they got out.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>It was the people who were above and that they basically lost their means of egress.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>It's those people who unfortunately could.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And the ones who, who came into the building game

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Absolutely.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And that's where the firefighter safety issue comes in.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And it, again, highlights challenge that we designed this building and the ultimate goal.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>The first goal is life safety.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And when you look at the life safety it's occupants and it's firefighters and occupants of a building, you want to get, have them get out.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>The chances of someone being in a building, with a massive fire in their lifetime is not very large.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>We're designing to minimize the risk of that to people, but any individual the risk that they're exposed to is small in their life.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>But if you're a firefighter that is your job, and that's something that you want to do for 20, 25, 30 years and do it day in, day out, go do your job, save people's lives, but also go back home to your family and be safe and not be, physically damaged in this process.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Right.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>So when you're talking about safety, the people who are most effected and we should be really thinking about is firefighters who do go into these buildings at the worst time every day.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It's difficult

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>to frame 9/11 as a success story,

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>there is something to that. The buildings could have collapsed much sooner killing all of them who were below the impact point for example.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And it could have been a much bigger tragedy.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I don't know if you

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>can like weight the tragedies,

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>just how big there are, but it was a huge strategy, but it could have one different, it could have taken a lot more lives.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And, in this way, this structural resiliency, like the building survived for as long as it could.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It's interesting to learn how buildings survive and what makes them survive that long.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And how can we make it survive to meet our objectives?

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And this is something I really wanted to touch in this episode.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>In this podcast, I had some really cool interviews and between me and my

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>audience, and You are the

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>only one who's not going to hear them because

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>this is theepisodes that are going to air

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>before your episodes.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So you're in the most unfortunate position here, but I'm going to tell you what there were about.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I've interviewed Danny

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Hopkin from OFR consultants

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>who mentioned with whom we discussed mass timber and fire engineer, timber and

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>fire.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And Danny he brought

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>up the issue of objectives.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Like fire resistance is horrible objective because for a small building, it means something completely different than for a tall building.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>had Brian Meacham who told

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>a lot about, this fire safety being a social technical, system of multiple things that have to align together.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And again, the missing link in the system.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Are the objectives in a way that start building a new world with better performance based engineering and better engineering.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Overall first, we should be clear on what the objectives are, because if your objective is to have 60 minutes fire resistance on your columns, that's not a great objective after all.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It's a compliance goal, not an objective.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>When we've connected, you told about this firefighter resiliency and for me, wow, that's an objective that we don't really often consider.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>We focus on egress.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>We focus on survivability of the structure long enough to not create this enormous harm.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>But as you mentioned, there are people whose job is to go

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>into such buildings.

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<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And in many

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>countries it's handled in different ways.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And I wondered how in your view, we could, implement this objective of firefighter resiliency or the ability of the buildings to be firefighting as I understand it into the design process, because for me today, it's not there for.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>I agree with you.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And, I do look forward to listening to these interviews when they air out.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>But you mentioned a couple of really key points.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>One of the most important things is a design should have an objective.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And when you look at how we design for different risks, sometimes we're more explicit about that.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Objective.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Sometimes we are less explicit, by training I'm a structural engineer and when I'm looking at fire, that's where my expertise lies.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>But one thing that is really key here.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>These are complex multifaceted issues.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And so no matter where each of us is coming from what the discipline is, we should be designing in the context of overall safety goals.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And so there should be dialogue between these designs.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>These are not individual pieces of design, they should talk to each other.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And the way that most designs are today, that doesn't happen.

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<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Yeah,

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<v Ali Ashrafi>I want to add that when it comes to safety of destructure in fire, what we do right today, the common practice, which is a prescriptive practice.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And you mentioned it's based on the fire resistance terminology is really not explicit.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>So in a fire resistance terminology, you take specific pieces of a building and you put them in a furnace for some duration and you say itpassed and thats great.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>But that actually doesn't tell you anything about how the building as a system is going to respond to the fire.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And if I want to bring it back to the question of firefighters safety, I see really three things that are key and they should speak to each other.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>One of them is stability of the building.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>The building is the battlefield where you're fighting a fire.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>If someone's going in, they need to make sure that the building will not collapse in them.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>That is the baseline, right?

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<v Ali Ashrafi>So the structural stability is a really important piece.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>The second piece is evacuation, right?

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<v Ali Ashrafi>So we're doing all of this because we want to save lives.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>You want to make sure that A either you can evacuate everyone from the building safe.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>That includes after everyone comes out, that includes firefighters being able to do their job and coming out.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Or if you're designed requires you to, have some people in the building or if the building is, think of a really high-rise building and things of that complex space, or think of a place where, you have people who are sick, who are disabled, who cannot evacuate easily.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And so you, your design has to be, you really allow them to.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Stay somewhere safe in a building until the fire is dealt with.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>That's that second question.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>The question of evacuation, and then the third piece of this is firefighting and firefighting needs things.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>There's an infrastructure in a building.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>If you look at again, a large complex building, there's a limit to what you can do from outside.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Firefighters really have to come in.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>They need to get to where they need to get to.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And that could be tens of floors up.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>They might need specific elevator access.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>They're competing for the stairs with people who want to get out of the building.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And then they're relying on the building system regarding standpipes or availability of sprinklers to help them fight the fire.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Those three pieces are all relevant and.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>They should speak to each other.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>They have an impact on each other.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>So for example, if you know that the building will survive the fire, and even if you don't do anything to building will not collapse on you, that might allow you to design the building in a way that people move from somewhere to a safe place in the building.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>It's a better, easier evacuation problem.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>It allows the firefighters to do their job much more safety at focused the effect, the effort more on firefighting.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Whereas if you have a building where you have this risk of a building collapsing and people are inside the building, it's forces, the firefighters who take more risk, they have to make decisions that, ideally, they don't want to make, they wouldn't want to make, but they have to put their lives at risk because there are other lives at risk.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>Right.

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<v Ali Ashrafi>And so these things have to really speak to each other as part of this.

00:15:15.226 --> 00:15:19.006
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>You said the firefighters can risk their lives entering the building.

00:15:19.606 --> 00:15:26.767
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And you said that the firefighters would have to enter the building, but this is also an objective.

00:15:26.846 --> 00:15:48.567
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>If the building is supposed to survive, is it supposed to survive and be refurbished immediately to allow operation immediately after the fire, or we just want everyone out of the building and just whatever the final outcome of the fire is, it is what it is.

00:15:49.226 --> 00:15:50.697
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And these are like three objectives.

00:15:50.697 --> 00:15:51.807
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>You can design a building to

00:15:51.807 --> 00:15:54.642
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>survive the fire unscattered,  you can

00:15:54.642 --> 00:15:56.802
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>have a building that,

00:15:56.881 --> 00:16:00.162
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>will require refurbrishment, but it's reusable.

00:16:00.182 --> 00:16:00.361
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And

00:16:00.361 --> 00:16:07.371
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>then you have, a building in which the safety is determined by the ability of everyone to not die in it while having a fire.

00:16:07.851 --> 00:16:12.371
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>If you are let's say a worker in the building this objectives are not that interesting for you.

00:16:13.361 --> 00:16:16.211
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Mostly interested in saving your life from the fire.

00:16:16.481 --> 00:16:18.131
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>If you are the owner of the building.

00:16:18.631 --> 00:16:33.152
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It's probably affected by the technical complexity of the building operations that are being held with that the business impact, the destruction of the building will have on your operations and the insurance you signed up for.

00:16:33.572 --> 00:16:38.282
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So these are the things that will determine if you are okay with the building being burned to the ground

00:16:38.282 --> 00:16:39.011
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>and you'll erect a new

00:16:39.032 --> 00:16:41.192
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>one, or you will really need one to saved.

00:16:41.761 --> 00:16:42.782
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>But if you're a firefighter.

00:16:43.532 --> 00:16:45.062
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I mean, that's a tough choice, you know?

00:16:45.142 --> 00:16:49.542
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Should I go and save the building for the sake of a saving a building or more?

00:16:49.552 --> 00:16:53.361
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Should I just, minimize the collateral damage around it?

00:16:53.812 --> 00:17:02.331
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Obviously when there is a life at risk, it's a completely different topic because from my experience with firefighters, they will always go in to save lives.

00:17:02.432 --> 00:17:12.592
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Because the guys are heroes, but from just the built environment perspective, I, I'm not sure if the objective of saving the building at any cost is,

00:17:13.061 --> 00:17:13.961
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>is a feasible one.

00:17:14.231 --> 00:17:14.382
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And

00:17:14.382 --> 00:17:16.811
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>now let's go back to the design phase.

00:17:17.301 --> 00:17:23.852
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>How big changes in the design has to be made to, allow for these objectives to be done, like how much.

00:17:24.737 --> 00:17:27.446
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Fire suppression, fire protection.

00:17:27.446 --> 00:17:30.926
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I have to put in my building to go from just everyone out.

00:17:30.926 --> 00:17:34.646
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And everyone's safe into the building  is unscattered after the fire

00:17:34.809 --> 00:17:37.269
<v Ali Ashrafi>a couple of really good questions that you raised.

00:17:37.269 --> 00:17:39.130
<v Ali Ashrafi>So I'll try to address,

00:17:39.728 --> 00:17:40.387
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>We can break them,

00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:41.740
<v Ali Ashrafi>both one at a time.

00:17:42.188 --> 00:17:42.637
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Yeah.

00:17:43.694 --> 00:17:44.805
<v Ali Ashrafi>You're absolutely right.

00:17:44.865 --> 00:18:01.454
<v Ali Ashrafi>The objective of the design really does depend on what you're designing for and what's the context and I'll give you the range and there's no one answer that the point of the design is the design should be appropriate for your building and its environment.

00:18:01.634 --> 00:18:07.615
<v Ali Ashrafi>So on one enough, let's think of a smaller residential buildings in a suburb.

00:18:07.644 --> 00:18:09.815
<v Ali Ashrafi>You have a two story, building.

00:18:10.894 --> 00:18:12.454
<v Ali Ashrafi>The risk of a collapse of the building.

00:18:12.454 --> 00:18:24.305
<v Ali Ashrafi>Once people come out is it doesn't have any other impact, broad, broader than that building in that case, most of the codes, really the provisions are there to make sure that people can get out safety, right?

00:18:24.515 --> 00:18:25.775
<v Ali Ashrafi>The building might burn out.

00:18:26.045 --> 00:18:29.015
<v Ali Ashrafi>You could build the building off combustible materials.

00:18:29.015 --> 00:18:32.555
<v Ali Ashrafi>There is no expectation because the consequences are manageable.

00:18:33.575 --> 00:18:37.654
<v Ali Ashrafi>The other end of the spectrumThink off...

00:18:38.109 --> 00:18:38.890
<v Ali Ashrafi>I'm in New York.

00:18:38.890 --> 00:18:45.279
<v Ali Ashrafi>So I'm going to use New York as the baseline, but you're in this dense urban area.

00:18:46.119 --> 00:18:50.319
<v Ali Ashrafi>And let's say you have a building that's large enough, substantial enough.

00:18:50.319 --> 00:18:55.400
<v Ali Ashrafi>You have a building to the right and the building to the left and subway in front of your building.

00:18:55.970 --> 00:19:03.531
<v Ali Ashrafi>Even if you get everyone out of the building is the collapse of this building at the end of that process, unacceptable goals.

00:19:03.940 --> 00:19:07.390
<v Ali Ashrafi>Probably not, but the codes today do not get you there.

00:19:07.390 --> 00:19:11.440
<v Ali Ashrafi>The codes do not explicitly design, which is a problem.

00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:17.470
<v Ali Ashrafi>Like when it comes to fire, they're designed for safety is all implicit.

00:19:17.470 --> 00:19:18.599
<v Ali Ashrafi>Nothing is explicit.

00:19:18.599 --> 00:19:19.680
<v Ali Ashrafi>There that's one of the problems.

00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:29.130
<v Ali Ashrafi>But back to your point, you have a range from in one end, you can easily get people out and the building might fall down and that's okay.

00:19:29.130 --> 00:19:31.619
<v Ali Ashrafi>On the other end, you have to be able to get people out.

00:19:31.980 --> 00:19:40.769
<v Ali Ashrafi>And even if that's the case, really, you don't want something to collapse because you are in a place where the damage is not contained.

00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:46.809
<v Ali Ashrafi>So that's the conversation that's relevant for each design, but also it does impact the regulations.

00:19:46.839 --> 00:20:01.815
<v Ali Ashrafi>So if you're building in New York, the requirements on new are tougher than if you're building in a suburb, and rightfully so because the consequences are more That's that point of it and then there are places where something in between might make sense, right?

00:20:01.815 --> 00:20:03.105
<v Ali Ashrafi>There are places where.

00:20:04.515 --> 00:20:07.934
<v Ali Ashrafi>It might be challenging, but you could design and you can get people out.

00:20:07.934 --> 00:20:15.095
<v Ali Ashrafi>And once people are out, then yes,  a partial collapse or something where you have to refurbish later, that's an acceptable solution.

00:20:15.095 --> 00:20:17.434
<v Ali Ashrafi>So we don't want to say which one it is.

00:20:17.434 --> 00:20:18.755
<v Ali Ashrafi>It depends on the context.

00:20:19.204 --> 00:20:26.694
<v Ali Ashrafi>Now, going back to what it takes to design a building, such that, it can really survive and fire.

00:20:27.265 --> 00:20:28.884
<v Ali Ashrafi>And here I'm talking about.

00:20:29.950 --> 00:20:31.450
<v Ali Ashrafi>More substantial structures.

00:20:31.480 --> 00:20:37.150
<v Ali Ashrafi>I'm not talking about a two story residential light with building, right?

00:20:37.180 --> 00:20:39.339
<v Ali Ashrafi>I'm talking about more substantial buildings.

00:20:39.940 --> 00:20:44.710
<v Ali Ashrafi>It's doable and it's actually not extremely challenging.

00:20:45.220 --> 00:20:50.740
<v Ali Ashrafi>And if you do it right, a lot of times it's actually coming with cost savings.

00:20:51.309 --> 00:20:55.170
<v Ali Ashrafi>And the reason for that is the current approach to safety and fire.

00:20:55.904 --> 00:20:56.684
<v Ali Ashrafi>Prescriptive.

00:20:56.805 --> 00:21:02.984
<v Ali Ashrafi>And so you're doing stuff and you're hoping for safety, but you're doing it without an analysis.

00:21:03.615 --> 00:21:08.535
<v Ali Ashrafi>And for that process to work, you have to be really conservative in some parts of that process.

00:21:08.615 --> 00:21:18.355
<v Ali Ashrafi>Whereas in a design where you're explicitly designing for safety, Your goal is very clear, but you do things that's really helped you get there.

00:21:18.355 --> 00:21:24.025
<v Ali Ashrafi>You don't waste your resources in places where you do something and it's really not providing any impact.

00:21:24.444 --> 00:21:29.214
<v Ali Ashrafi>And so in a lot of these scenarios, you might be able to actually reduce your costs.

00:21:29.950 --> 00:21:33.400
<v Ali Ashrafi>Not because you're doing less, you're doing stuff smarter.

00:21:33.400 --> 00:21:38.589
<v Ali Ashrafi>You're actually designing as opposed to doing some general thing and hoping that it's going to be safe.

00:21:39.130 --> 00:21:44.349
<v Ali Ashrafi>And this is something that we see in other contexts, for example, for seismic risk.

00:21:44.849 --> 00:21:58.769
<v Ali Ashrafi>There's also a simpler way of designing and  there is performance-based design and in which you really go through a lot more detail to design the building, looking at its actual behavior and the type of damage that you're going to get.

00:21:59.309 --> 00:22:11.900
<v Ali Ashrafi>And what we see there is we spent a lot more thought and effort in the design, but the designs typically end up being more resilient and cheaper because you're doing a smart design.

00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:15.380
<v Ali Ashrafi>So it's not about cost per se.

00:22:15.410 --> 00:22:16.279
<v Ali Ashrafi>It's that?

00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:21.890
<v Ali Ashrafi>No one designs it that way today for fire or for most of the buildings.

00:22:22.022 --> 00:22:22.383
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Okay.

00:22:22.462 --> 00:22:26.083
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I'm gonna ask you a question that is in principle.

00:22:26.083 --> 00:22:27.282
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Impossible to be answered.

00:22:27.883 --> 00:22:34.373
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So who should decide, if we should pursue this particular objective because we're in this, I think loophole.

00:22:35.482 --> 00:22:44.682
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>If it is the firefighters to decide if they want to have the buildings, a bunker or just something that people can escape with.

00:22:45.103 --> 00:22:56.563
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>They, I believe they may not have the required amount of knowledge in terms of structural fire engineering or structural engineering overall to truly judge.

00:22:57.313 --> 00:23:01.053
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>If, one design is superior to another, it's very difficult.

00:23:01.053 --> 00:23:08.212
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And in the end, this flattens the discussion to probably the fire resistance periods, because this is the easiest way to,  proxy the fire resistance.

00:23:08.782 --> 00:23:16.222
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>If it's the fire experts like me or you, we don't know the firefighters craft, we learn from them.

00:23:16.222 --> 00:23:18.982
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>We talk to them,  you are, maybe you have been, but.

00:23:19.728 --> 00:23:27.548
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I've never been in a situation where I was fighting for my life, holding a hose in my hand and praying that the fire goes off.

00:23:27.817 --> 00:23:29.288
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I've never been in such a situation.

00:23:29.468 --> 00:23:38.167
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So I don't really know what is the mindset of a person fighting for their life and trying to save the life of another person in the building that is due to collapse.

00:23:38.708 --> 00:23:46.718
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So I don't also think we are competent to say, okay, this is the objective we should go for because maybe in this way, we.

00:23:46.859 --> 00:23:53.460
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Unintendedly forced the firefighters to enter a building because we say, okay, the objective was that the building will survive anything.

00:23:53.819 --> 00:23:57.960
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So it creates, uh, if they trust us as a fire expert, as they

00:23:57.960 --> 00:23:59.549
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>might think okay, super safe

00:23:59.880 --> 00:24:00.269
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>and so on.

00:24:00.269 --> 00:24:02.940
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And that, that might not be the case because we are unable to,

00:24:03.220 --> 00:24:04.089
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>see all the fires.

00:24:04.480 --> 00:24:08.440
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And if you're just an authority, if you're a

00:24:09.490 --> 00:24:11.250
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>person who, whowrites the law.

00:24:11.769 --> 00:24:12.400
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>You  are neither

00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:14.140
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>a firefighter nor fire engineer.

00:24:14.650 --> 00:24:16.269
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>In many places, you will be one of them.

00:24:16.359 --> 00:24:20.289
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And I congratulate these places, but in most cases you are neither of them.

00:24:20.380 --> 00:24:21.579
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>You're a politician or something.

00:24:22.269 --> 00:24:26.079
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And then all your knowledge comes from the advisers.

00:24:27.234 --> 00:24:31.644
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And, this can lean to one side to another side and it's very difficult.

00:24:31.694 --> 00:24:40.954
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>How we get to this, thought out objective of which buildings are due to stand, which buildings are due to fail, which buildings

00:24:40.954 --> 00:24:42.964
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>are just allow people

00:24:42.964 --> 00:24:47.384
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>to escape and how we implement this risk levels in a way.

00:24:47.414 --> 00:24:47.924
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>We're in the

00:24:47.924 --> 00:24:49.095
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>objective area.

00:24:49.555 --> 00:24:50.595
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>If the objective

00:24:50.609 --> 00:24:54.849
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>is, not sharp, not really clear.

00:24:55.269 --> 00:24:56.688
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>How do you design right.

00:24:57.056 --> 00:24:57.415
<v Ali Ashrafi>Okay.

00:24:57.516 --> 00:24:58.875
<v Ali Ashrafi>I love the questions.

00:24:58.875 --> 00:25:01.336
<v Ali Ashrafi>That again, you raised multiple good questions.

00:25:01.395 --> 00:25:04.806
<v Ali Ashrafi>I'll try to answer from different perspectives.

00:25:05.526 --> 00:25:09.445
<v Ali Ashrafi>Design is never done in a vacuum.

00:25:09.895 --> 00:25:10.195
<v Ali Ashrafi>Right.

00:25:10.195 --> 00:25:18.746
<v Ali Ashrafi>So when we come to do the design, it is within a specific jurisdiction and there are codes and standards and there's a reason for that.

00:25:18.776 --> 00:25:31.615
<v Ali Ashrafi>When you look at the process of how those codes and guidances are put together, you see all these stakeholders coming to the table and having the discussion, because that should happen.

00:25:31.955 --> 00:25:33.346
<v Ali Ashrafi>That's absolutely right.

00:25:34.605 --> 00:25:40.286
<v Ali Ashrafi>Each of these stakeholders has this perspective that's relevant  and valuable.

00:25:40.826 --> 00:25:45.346
<v Ali Ashrafi>And it's important to have those dialogues so that they are explicit about that.

00:25:45.405 --> 00:25:49.306
<v Ali Ashrafi>And for fire, just having the question is very important.

00:25:49.786 --> 00:25:58.066
<v Ali Ashrafi>What, one of the things I'm hoping to highlight as no one asks that question of what the objective is, right?

00:25:58.486 --> 00:26:03.556
<v Ali Ashrafi>You are doing certain things in the code and there's a presumption of the level of safety.

00:26:03.556 --> 00:26:04.905
<v Ali Ashrafi>And certainly there's a level of.

00:26:05.760 --> 00:26:07.800
<v Ali Ashrafi>Certainly for the more common buildings.

00:26:08.161 --> 00:26:17.740
<v Ali Ashrafi>But the question is when you're looking at these events that might be rare, but really high impact, what is the right way of dealing with them?

00:26:17.740 --> 00:26:20.060
<v Ali Ashrafi>So I think that's important to keep in mind.

00:26:20.480 --> 00:26:26.990
<v Ali Ashrafi>And then I'm going to give you two examples of where the process has worked well, or we have good examples.

00:26:26.990 --> 00:26:36.840
<v Ali Ashrafi>One is, several years ago, a lot of collaborative work that was included, NIST included UL and clip a lot of fire departments.

00:26:37.050 --> 00:26:38.911
<v Ali Ashrafi>I know New York was involved.

00:26:38.911 --> 00:26:40.891
<v Ali Ashrafi>Chicago Fire Department was involved.

00:26:41.371 --> 00:26:42.570
<v Ali Ashrafi>They did a lot of testing.

00:26:42.601 --> 00:26:56.790
<v Ali Ashrafi>And the goal here was to bring the fire science into the firefighting process and see if the firefighting tactics could be improved in a way that allowed for better, safer firefighting.

00:26:56.971 --> 00:26:57.951
<v Ali Ashrafi>So it's better for.

00:26:58.830 --> 00:27:09.510
<v Ali Ashrafi>Potential victims for occupy for occupants of a building and for the firefighters and that collaborative process resulted in improvements in how people fight fires today.

00:27:09.871 --> 00:27:11.131
<v Ali Ashrafi>And that's the good mother.

00:27:11.401 --> 00:27:14.010
<v Ali Ashrafi>These discussions need to have everyone in them.

00:27:14.701 --> 00:27:20.567
<v Ali Ashrafi>Bringing this discussion closer to the question of performance of buildings in the fire.

00:27:20.777 --> 00:27:22.997
<v Ali Ashrafi>We do have standards that speak to that.

00:27:22.997 --> 00:27:32.596
<v Ali Ashrafi>So for example, in, in the U S uh, ASC7, which is American Society of Civil Engineers, it's a document that talks about loading on buildings.

00:27:33.136 --> 00:27:42.876
<v Ali Ashrafi>There's an appendix E that's explicitly talks about performance space designed for structures for fire, and it talks about the objective and.

00:27:44.366 --> 00:27:54.676
<v Ali Ashrafi>At a bare minimum, there is people have to be able to evacuate the building safety with a lot of, safety factor on that.

00:27:55.096 --> 00:28:01.696
<v Ali Ashrafi>And then they might, and then you can have improved performance objectives where the building survives a fire, for example,

00:28:01.819 --> 00:28:03.079
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And who decides, if you go into

00:28:03.102 --> 00:28:05.082
<v Ali Ashrafi>The process always needs an approval.

00:28:05.082 --> 00:28:08.412
<v Ali Ashrafi>So you would have the authority having jurisdiction.

00:28:08.412 --> 00:28:10.122
<v Ali Ashrafi>So it could be a building department.

00:28:10.122 --> 00:28:13.991
<v Ali Ashrafi>Sometimes it could be a fire department that makes that decision.

00:28:14.051 --> 00:28:15.422
<v Ali Ashrafi>And that's a discussion, right?

00:28:15.422 --> 00:28:21.362
<v Ali Ashrafi>So you need to make sure that they understand the pieces, but an important part of this process is.

00:28:22.352 --> 00:28:23.912
<v Ali Ashrafi>Third party, peer reviews.

00:28:23.942 --> 00:28:40.231
<v Ali Ashrafi>Because if you sit from, if you look at it from a perspective of a department of building or the fire department, they don't necessarily have in-house expertise to deal with all the complexities that could be and to a building, they are infinite, right?

00:28:40.592 --> 00:28:44.412
<v Ali Ashrafi>No one department, no one person has the answers, right?

00:28:44.741 --> 00:28:49.092
<v Ali Ashrafi>So at the same time, they need to be able to make decisions that are safe.

00:28:49.561 --> 00:28:57.731
<v Ali Ashrafi>And there is definitely a healthy level of skepticism that should be there regarding the design team where, okay.

00:28:57.731 --> 00:29:05.981
<v Ali Ashrafi>You are the design team, but is there any pressure on you to do something that has an economic value, but maybe compromise the safety?

00:29:06.221 --> 00:29:09.521
<v Ali Ashrafi>That is the job of the department is building to be looking at those questions.

00:29:09.571 --> 00:29:12.721
<v Ali Ashrafi>And so I think in places like this, bringing.

00:29:13.561 --> 00:29:19.162
<v Ali Ashrafi>Third party experts from outside who have no interest in a project per se.

00:29:19.162 --> 00:29:26.301
<v Ali Ashrafi>So they're not swayed by, let's say commercial interests, but they have that expertise could really help the process.

00:29:26.332 --> 00:29:38.602
<v Ali Ashrafi>That's how seismic performance-based design has been done in the U S and I'm sure in there stuff that world for many years, and it's a process that's that allows people to come to a safe solution that.

00:29:39.251 --> 00:29:39.491
<v Ali Ashrafi>It's

00:29:39.865 --> 00:29:44.095
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Yeah, I think having discussions is probably the best way.

00:29:44.095 --> 00:29:51.744
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I'm just, I'm really terrified with some of these discussions where, economic benefit or short-term benefit is.

00:29:52.295 --> 00:29:56.625
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>That's the objective of some stakeholders to kill the objectives of the other ones.

00:29:56.625 --> 00:30:00.345
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And this is when it usually goes and goes horrible.

00:30:00.531 --> 00:30:02.872
<v Ali Ashrafi>Just let me hide at something here.

00:30:03.652 --> 00:30:09.051
<v Ali Ashrafi>In that process, I'm describing the perspective from an authority that has to approve.

00:30:09.051 --> 00:30:10.582
<v Ali Ashrafi>They always have that concern.

00:30:10.582 --> 00:30:13.011
<v Ali Ashrafi>And again, you have to have that concern from that perspective.

00:30:13.521 --> 00:30:21.001
<v Ali Ashrafi>If you come to us as engineers, for example, that's our given the task of life safety, essentially.

00:30:21.471 --> 00:30:25.461
<v Ali Ashrafi>I see us as in the same function as a doctor has.

00:30:25.821 --> 00:30:30.981
<v Ali Ashrafi>So your job is to do something that is safe.

00:30:31.491 --> 00:30:38.961
<v Ali Ashrafi>Are there doctors out there that might make decisions that are not right and influenced by financial interest?

00:30:39.622 --> 00:30:40.551
<v Ali Ashrafi>Yes, there are.

00:30:41.061 --> 00:30:44.061
<v Ali Ashrafi>But that would be also a betrayal of their,

00:30:44.230 --> 00:30:44.529
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Yeah.

00:30:44.666 --> 00:30:46.076
<v Ali Ashrafi>know, there is enough of what they're doing, right?

00:30:46.257 --> 00:30:53.896
<v Ali Ashrafi>Engineers, good engineers would never compromise safety because of, because of something else.

00:30:54.196 --> 00:30:57.106
<v Ali Ashrafi>Our job is to do a design that's reasonably.

00:30:58.277 --> 00:30:59.326
<v Ali Ashrafi>And safe, right?

00:30:59.326 --> 00:31:19.547
<v Ali Ashrafi>So you don't want to waste resources where it doesn't provide, additional benefits, but providing that baseline level of safety is an absolutely a part of the job and for an engineer to not do that around an architect or a safety official, not that it would never happen, but it's something that's obviously against ethics and laws and all that.

00:31:20.082 --> 00:31:20.291
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Yeah.

00:31:20.394 --> 00:31:20.693
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Okay.

00:31:20.693 --> 00:31:23.574
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Let's move away from objectives for w for a while.

00:31:23.993 --> 00:31:24.834
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>In one

00:31:24.834 --> 00:31:26.723
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>of your talks you have

00:31:26.723 --> 00:31:27.653
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>mentioned something that

00:31:27.733 --> 00:31:28.993
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>took my interests.

00:31:29.534 --> 00:31:35.084
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And it may be the reason why I am talking about firefighter safety with the structural fire engineer.

00:31:35.564 --> 00:31:46.683
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And, this was the concept of how the decisions shape the firefighting context, like design decisions, because, The way, how we build the buildings will determine the way, how the fire can be fought in there.

00:31:47.013 --> 00:31:50.703
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>You mentioned the word battleground, building is the battleground for the fire.

00:31:51.003 --> 00:31:58.473
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Either fire emerges in it and if everything plays right, the battleground is in favor of the firefighters and can help them.

00:31:58.983 --> 00:32:06.243
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>If we take some decisions, we can make the battleground tougher for the firefighters and, the

00:32:06.634 --> 00:32:09.348
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>environment is pacing at an

00:32:09.348 --> 00:32:14.568
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>insane speed with new technologies, new challenges that were not there 30 years ago.

00:32:14.959 --> 00:32:25.878
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>For start of this part of the interview, from your perspective, what are the key aspects in which the design truly does influence the firefighting context?

00:32:26.328 --> 00:32:27.858
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>In what way?

00:32:28.308 --> 00:32:29.929
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Us designing the building?

00:32:31.219 --> 00:32:34.548
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>outcome in terms of how the fire can be fought into the building.

00:32:34.806 --> 00:32:49.115
<v Ali Ashrafi>There are a few factors and some of this I've hit on before, but starting from maybe level of importance, I would say a building stability because that's the context, right?

00:32:49.861 --> 00:32:56.371
<v Ali Ashrafi>And that's something where it's not just about building stability, but knowledge of building stability.

00:32:56.401 --> 00:33:08.500
<v Ali Ashrafi>So let's say if you have a building and maybe the building ends up standing for the duration, but if you don't know that, and that question, mark is there, you have to make other decisions, right?

00:33:08.500 --> 00:33:11.111
<v Ali Ashrafi>Because again, these are questions of life safety.

00:33:11.161 --> 00:33:15.871
<v Ali Ashrafi>Quantified knowledge of building stability is certainly one of those things.

00:33:16.141 --> 00:33:19.260
<v Ali Ashrafi>There are rules of thumb for firefighters for that.

00:33:19.740 --> 00:33:26.280
<v Ali Ashrafi>But if you look at these more complex buildings, a lot of those rules of thumb might not be really applicable.

00:33:26.641 --> 00:33:36.405
<v Ali Ashrafi>So being able to know, okay, if I go into this building and for this type of fire The building will stand or if that's not the case, I'll have 60 minutes.

00:33:36.405 --> 00:33:37.546
<v Ali Ashrafi>I have 30 minutes.

00:33:37.546 --> 00:33:41.476
<v Ali Ashrafi>I have 90 minutes, but based on an analysis, I think that would be.

00:33:41.722 --> 00:33:43.143
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And going into the building

00:33:43.143 --> 00:33:44.373
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>stability a little  deeper.

00:33:44.643 --> 00:33:44.762
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's

00:33:44.762 --> 00:33:52.143
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>also not how long the building will stand, but how much a warning time it will give to the firefighters before it collapses.

00:33:52.502 --> 00:33:58.772
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So, this advanced, uh, it was also something from your talks today that really resonated with me that we just.

00:33:59.597 --> 00:34:03.968
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Just need the 90 minutes of stability because there is no timer.

00:34:04.357 --> 00:34:07.077
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>The firefighter doesn't know if it's 89th minute or something.

00:34:07.718 --> 00:34:14.617
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It's also in the matter that the failure is not like immediate, it's a progressive collapse.

00:34:14.617 --> 00:34:17.648
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>For example, that gives a warning that people can exit.

00:34:17.728 --> 00:34:18.237
<v Ali Ashrafi>Correct.

00:34:18.568 --> 00:34:24.117
<v Ali Ashrafi>So that's one context building stability related to that, which we talked about is evacuate.

00:34:24.867 --> 00:34:28.047
<v Ali Ashrafi>You need to be able to get people out of the building safely.

00:34:28.047 --> 00:34:34.648
<v Ali Ashrafi>And if there's a question there, then the firefighters will put their lives at risk to do whatever they can.

00:34:34.648 --> 00:34:35.217
<v Ali Ashrafi>They're right.

00:34:35.617 --> 00:34:48.818
<v Ali Ashrafi>And right here, again, there's interplay between how these designs are, what you have regarding how quick it is to evacuate people or how long it takes, can have an impact on building stability and vice versa.

00:34:49.117 --> 00:34:51.168
<v Ali Ashrafi>So those are two overarching

00:34:51.215 --> 00:34:57.556
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So from a designer perspective, you mean the stability in terms of how the structure is designed, was the load bearing capacity.

00:34:57.826 --> 00:35:10.606
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>What are the paths to spread the loads and stuff like that was the structural protection of the critical elements from the fire and from the egress is how we shape the pathways or how

00:35:11.333 --> 00:35:12.083
<v Ali Ashrafi>all of that.

00:35:12.083 --> 00:35:13.492
<v Ali Ashrafi>So let's say for the evacuation.

00:35:13.492 --> 00:35:13.583
<v Ali Ashrafi>Okay.

00:35:14.393 --> 00:35:16.342
<v Ali Ashrafi>Even explicitly analyzing that.

00:35:16.342 --> 00:35:32.393
<v Ali Ashrafi>So if you look at a lot of, what we do in the building, really the goal of the code, the first goal of the code is to get people from the immediate area next to the fire, to some area that's somewhat protected by barriers or roles.

00:35:32.443 --> 00:35:35.773
<v Ali Ashrafi>That's something that happens in seconds and in.

00:35:37.362 --> 00:35:45.463
<v Ali Ashrafi>When you get there, whether or now the bill people can actually get out of the building or not is not an explicit part of the code.

00:35:45.463 --> 00:35:46.932
<v Ali Ashrafi>You don't actually analyze that.

00:35:46.983 --> 00:35:47.702
<v Ali Ashrafi>But we could.

00:35:48.213 --> 00:35:48.543
<v Ali Ashrafi>Right.

00:35:48.572 --> 00:35:52.793
<v Ali Ashrafi>And it could be really relevant  even within a floor.

00:35:53.302 --> 00:35:57.802
<v Ali Ashrafi>The provision, the provisions of the code are still prescriptive.

00:35:57.802 --> 00:36:12.179
<v Ali Ashrafi>So the code tells you have these many path to your egress  so have I say to two independent means, then they might have to be separated, but by this much, but you don't actually analyze, what's going to happen in a real fire.

00:36:12.509 --> 00:36:17.128
<v Ali Ashrafi>And from analysis, we know that you might have code compliant buildings.

00:36:17.128 --> 00:36:20.659
<v Ali Ashrafi>And at the same time, if there's a fire, just because of the unique design of the.

00:36:21.494 --> 00:36:23.304
<v Ali Ashrafi>Not everyone might get out to safety.

00:36:23.304 --> 00:36:26.903
<v Ali Ashrafi>So the problem is these Arctic and not explicit goals of the design.

00:36:26.934 --> 00:36:28.193
<v Ali Ashrafi>They're implicit.

00:36:28.224 --> 00:36:31.853
<v Ali Ashrafi>We do things to minimize the risks, but we don't explicitly designed for them.

00:36:32.184 --> 00:36:36.724
<v Ali Ashrafi>So that's evacuation and building safety, but then you look at the other pieces.

00:36:37.704 --> 00:36:41.693
<v Ali Ashrafi>Certainly the nature and spread off the fire has an impact, right?

00:36:41.724 --> 00:36:53.244
<v Ali Ashrafi>And that's, again, something that is impacted by how we design the building in terms of the materials that we use, the layout of the building, an open building versus a compartmentalized building.

00:36:53.273 --> 00:36:56.304
<v Ali Ashrafi>And I'm not saying you have to do one versus the other.

00:36:56.304 --> 00:37:00.143
<v Ali Ashrafi>It's just the design decisions have an impact.

00:37:00.396 --> 00:37:04.916
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>You need to know what will happen in the building in terms of the course of the fire.

00:37:05.306 --> 00:37:08.036
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And I don't know if it's a thing but in Europe we will.

00:37:08.217 --> 00:37:11.827
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>We are also, for all open plan compartments, we're using this

00:37:11.827 --> 00:37:13.827
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>traveling fire methodology to determine

00:37:14.657 --> 00:37:21.496
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>plenty of possible scenarios in a building to see how they will affect the structure of the building.

00:37:21.987 --> 00:37:24.327
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And it's something we start to truly consider.

00:37:24.327 --> 00:37:25.197
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And it was also a big,

00:37:25.327 --> 00:37:26.146
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>not travelling fires

00:37:26.166 --> 00:37:31.876
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>because that's new, but this compartment fire behavior was also a significant part of Eurocodes.

00:37:32.387 --> 00:37:34.367
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And it was one of the big, funding

00:37:34.367 --> 00:37:35.536
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>things in the Eurocodes.

00:37:36.047 --> 00:37:36.677
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>There is

00:37:36.677 --> 00:37:36.797
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>the

00:37:36.797 --> 00:37:38.206
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>standard fires, curves but there

00:37:38.206 --> 00:37:40.427
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>are localized fires that you can calculate with it.

00:37:41.086 --> 00:37:46.847
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And you take this compartment, fire dynamics into equation, and as an

00:37:46.847 --> 00:37:49.882
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>engineer, you truly craft that if you like

00:37:49.882 --> 00:37:54.021
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>it or not, but shaping your building, you're shaping the possible fire outcomes.

00:37:54.072 --> 00:37:54.612
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So, okay.

00:37:54.612 --> 00:37:56.851
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>The third thing is the nature and spell of fire?

00:37:57.391 --> 00:37:58.311
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Is there a fourth thing?

00:37:58.693 --> 00:37:59.293
<v Ali Ashrafi>Sure.

00:37:59.324 --> 00:38:01.333
<v Ali Ashrafi>I can add, there are a few more things that are really

00:38:01.532 --> 00:38:01.952
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>let's go.

00:38:02.132 --> 00:38:02.431
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Yeah.

00:38:02.983 --> 00:38:08.778
<v Ali Ashrafi>I think another factor is really how common or how familiar a fire is.

00:38:09.108 --> 00:38:21.449
<v Ali Ashrafi>So if you think about that, when you have put yourself in the shoe of a firefighter and you have to make decisions, these decisions are guided by your training or by your past experience.

00:38:21.929 --> 00:38:26.548
<v Ali Ashrafi>And those are heavily guided by the more frequent fires that we see.

00:38:26.599 --> 00:38:36.478
<v Ali Ashrafi>But if you come to it, how many really large, uncontrolled or hard to control fires in these larger complex buildings in your lifetime.

00:38:36.509 --> 00:38:39.509
<v Ali Ashrafi>And how many of them do you see  to be able to generalize from them?

00:38:40.079 --> 00:38:41.699
<v Ali Ashrafi>Luckily, not a lot.

00:38:42.088 --> 00:38:51.688
<v Ali Ashrafi>And that goes back to, we're doing a great job in terms of doing other things  with, with fire safety measures, with sprinklers and so on to really mitigate the risk.

00:38:51.768 --> 00:38:55.938
<v Ali Ashrafi>But it also means that when you have a fire that looks different.

00:38:56.778 --> 00:38:58.938
<v Ali Ashrafi>You have less things to go by.

00:38:59.509 --> 00:39:13.728
<v Ali Ashrafi>And so that's where doing some of this analysis, doing some of this thinking ahead of time, and then seeing how that should impact operations and training of firefighters is really important.

00:39:13.728 --> 00:39:21.831
<v Ali Ashrafi>I think that's one area where we could basically cover that gap, which is a good gap that we don't see a lot of these large uncontrollable.

00:39:22.670 --> 00:39:27.530
<v Ali Ashrafi>But use what we know and model these things and play out different scenarios.

00:39:27.530 --> 00:39:29.871
<v Ali Ashrafi>And it's not something that just engineers do.

00:39:29.871 --> 00:39:37.550
<v Ali Ashrafi>It should be where there, and the firefighters are there and we're working together to see this tactic versus a different tactic.

00:39:37.581 --> 00:39:39.951
<v Ali Ashrafi>What would be the impact on firefighting?

00:39:40.010 --> 00:39:43.260
<v Ali Ashrafi>So I think that's another, that's another factor there.

00:39:43.800 --> 00:39:52.710
<v Ali Ashrafi>And if I want to just add one more thing, I think it's the infrastructure of the building and how that allows for firefighting.

00:39:52.771 --> 00:39:59.831
<v Ali Ashrafi>And again, if you want to break it into components, how long does it take you to get to a place where you can effectively fight a fire?

00:40:00.101 --> 00:40:03.190
<v Ali Ashrafi>So for a lot of these buildings, you have to walk up the stairs.

00:40:03.221 --> 00:40:10.090
<v Ali Ashrafi>And so if you put the, put yourself in there in a firefighter shoe, you get to the building, you have very heavy equipment.

00:40:10.541 --> 00:40:12.820
<v Ali Ashrafi>Most elevators are shut down.

00:40:12.831 --> 00:40:14.590
<v Ali Ashrafi>Sometimes there's one that you could use.

00:40:14.650 --> 00:40:20.710
<v Ali Ashrafi>That's actually part of the discussion, having elevators that you could use to get to the place faster, but.

00:40:21.775 --> 00:40:31.706
<v Ali Ashrafi>By enlarge large, you're walking up the stairs and as you're walking up the stairs, 20, 30, 40 stories, you also have people coming down the stairs because they need to get out.

00:40:32.155 --> 00:40:36.536
<v Ali Ashrafi>It might take you 30, 40 minutes to get to the place where you can start fighting the fire.

00:40:36.985 --> 00:40:42.565
<v Ali Ashrafi>That fire looks very different from something that you could have gotten to, after five minutes.

00:40:42.896 --> 00:40:44.155
<v Ali Ashrafi>So that's important.

00:40:44.155 --> 00:40:48.465
<v Ali Ashrafi>And then when you get there, all the water that you get is what you get from your standard.

00:40:49.315 --> 00:40:55.226
<v Ali Ashrafi>And that's, again, that's not explicit to design for that scenario, so it could be right.

00:40:55.226 --> 00:41:14.773
<v Ali Ashrafi>So if the design is, for example, something that allows you to have enough water where you can fight a fire, that's involving the entire floor, that's better than having a small amount of fire  or if you have a building right, again, you're confident that the building is going to stand.

00:41:14.922 --> 00:41:21.322
<v Ali Ashrafi>And you can assign more people to fighting  the fire, as opposed to evacuating the building.

00:41:21.922 --> 00:41:35.056
<v Ali Ashrafi>And so maybe you can even start going to floors adjacent and focus on controlling the spread of the fire, and you let this for burn and to the extent that you can make a dent into it and you do, but you don't put yourself out in as much.

00:41:36.121 --> 00:41:39.780
<v Ali Ashrafi>These are things that's really shaped firefighting in a deep way.

00:41:40.588 --> 00:41:43.559
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Yeah, if you don't design them, they're not going to be used.

00:41:43.639 --> 00:41:44.168
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>That's the bottom.

00:41:45.079 --> 00:41:59.869
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So the five things you've mentioned, structural stability, egress and rescue the nature of the fire, spread, closing the knowledge gap between the designer and the firefighters and the final one was the firefighting infrastructure.

00:41:59.878 --> 00:42:04.219
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So these five things are how the designers would shape the firefighting context.

00:42:04.219 --> 00:42:06.329
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And I think  it's really powerful because there's a lot of.

00:42:07.224 --> 00:42:10.043
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>In fact in that list that we truly do.

00:42:10.434 --> 00:42:29.063
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It's our choices it's, and, it should be choice, not just, the default volume that's been placed in a place without giving, a good thought, a standpipe in a small building, of completely different relevance than a standpipe in a skyscraper where there is literally the single only way to give water.

00:42:29.204 --> 00:42:29.804
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Okay.

00:42:29.903 --> 00:42:33.684
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>One more thing that I have noted for this is how the battle ground has changed.

00:42:34.023 --> 00:42:40.554
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I have the feeling that, the design is not evolving as quickly as the problems are, , that the codes are very.

00:42:41.528 --> 00:42:41.978
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>At least in

00:42:41.978 --> 00:42:43.599
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Europe, in NFPA it's a little

00:42:43.599 --> 00:42:44.318
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>bit different.

00:42:44.318 --> 00:42:49.548
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And if you get 2000 people to vote on that change, yet, it gets implemented very quickly I've been there.

00:42:49.548 --> 00:42:56.088
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I've seen that I was highly impressed by the process, but,  in general, the codes are very slow in adapting.

00:42:56.659 --> 00:43:01.429
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And if you'd take a look at the buildings today and 10 years ago, it's a completely different.

00:43:02.389 --> 00:43:04.429
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It's different materials.

00:43:04.998 --> 00:43:21.869
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It's different, building envelope, the facades have changed so much and, uh, different ape or tightness, for example, that's already something that completely changes the battleground that the whole fire environment in your building.

00:43:22.559 --> 00:43:25.108
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And for me, the most interesting.

00:43:25.963 --> 00:43:29.204
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Is that buildings are small power plants today.

00:43:29.427 --> 00:43:33.057
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It's not that you just have a few cables to distribute the energy among the building.

00:43:33.057 --> 00:43:42.371
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Now you want to generate the energy on your whole facade, and hopefully even store it in the building in some power bank to sell it at the bigger price when it's needed.

00:43:42.701 --> 00:43:46.900
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And these are recent objectives five years ago, I would not think about this.

00:43:47.320 --> 00:43:50.831
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And today I have to consider it in a way in my design.

00:43:50.981 --> 00:44:06.090
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Obviously we are talking here about very specific buildings in some of your talks, you'd called them the high impact buildings, the ones that are like, it's not the buildings that you should go with prescriptive codes for, because it's this type of a building that really needs to be engineered.

00:44:06.860 --> 00:44:13.590
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>But the battle ground is changing and it's changing so quickly is how do feel about it?

00:44:13.590 --> 00:44:16.021
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Is there a way we can cope with that?

00:44:16.050 --> 00:44:21.001
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>How we put the firefighter resiliency in this ever-changing landscape?

00:44:21.501 --> 00:44:23.391
<v Ali Ashrafi>Um, a great question.

00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:26.541
<v Ali Ashrafi>I think the answer is performance space design, right?

00:44:26.780 --> 00:44:30.411
<v Ali Ashrafi>Your design has to be relevant to your building.

00:44:30.440 --> 00:44:34.940
<v Ali Ashrafi>You have to look at the consequences that are applicable to your building.

00:44:34.971 --> 00:44:46.871
<v Ali Ashrafi>And what is the behavior that's acceptable from the building in its context, in the place and in the city that it is and what that design looks like should be different than.

00:44:47.371 --> 00:44:52.021
<v Ali Ashrafi>Building to building because each of these buildings is a custom design.

00:44:52.320 --> 00:44:56.911
<v Ali Ashrafi>When you look at these larger complex buildings, none of them is like the other one.

00:44:56.940 --> 00:45:07.981
<v Ali Ashrafi>They have similarities, but there are enough differences where for everything else in the design, if you don't take one design and apply it to the other one, we analyze that for fire.

00:45:08.460 --> 00:45:13.960
<v Ali Ashrafi>It should be the same, but it does need, a more consciousness or.

00:45:14.931 --> 00:45:18.411
<v Ali Ashrafi>The fact that, okay, you do have these risks that are ever changing.

00:45:18.530 --> 00:45:26.141
<v Ali Ashrafi>And that performance-based design is something that does allow you to, get to design that safer and better.

00:45:26.530 --> 00:45:31.860
<v Ali Ashrafi>And then for everyone who's involved to have that conversation, I think there's that presumption of fire safety I think.

00:45:32.650 --> 00:45:37.721
<v Ali Ashrafi>Fire resistance terminology, you get two hours or three hours of fire resistance.

00:45:38.291 --> 00:45:44.081
<v Ali Ashrafi>People look at that and generally think, okay, that means three hours of standing in a fire.

00:45:44.740 --> 00:45:47.800
<v Ali Ashrafi>Whereas a, maybe that's actually not okay for a building.

00:45:47.831 --> 00:45:58.346
<v Ali Ashrafi>Maybe that shouldn't be acceptable, even if it's three hours, but B that's that presumption is backed by fact, it depends on scenarios in most cases.

00:45:58.346 --> 00:45:59.726
<v Ali Ashrafi>And I do want to highlight this.

00:46:00.056 --> 00:46:06.596
<v Ali Ashrafi>In most cases, the prescriptive design does get your building that is safe.

00:46:06.626 --> 00:46:11.695
<v Ali Ashrafi>And you don't have these frequent massive collapses of buildings and fire.

00:46:11.726 --> 00:46:16.295
<v Ali Ashrafi>The codes are doing something really well, but we need to be conscious that.

00:46:17.188 --> 00:46:24.387
<v Ali Ashrafi>Living in ever more complex buildings and ever more complex environments and with a risk that is changing.

00:46:24.387 --> 00:46:40.547
<v Ali Ashrafi>And so if we want to have resilience and if you want to avoid these low likelihood rare, but high impact scenarios, really the key answer is, to go and explicitly designed for safety, which is performance based design.

00:46:40.800 --> 00:46:45.650
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>you know, one of the interviews with, with Benjamin Ralph i've, actually praised that codes are good.

00:46:45.650 --> 00:46:50.130
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And for a second, I thought this is the end of my career as an engineer after 11 years.

00:46:50.860 --> 00:46:54.221
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Of doing performance based engineer I've praised codes for being great.

00:46:54.701 --> 00:47:03.650
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It was in the context of rapid, iterations of building design in which the full PBD  it's just impossible to apply.

00:47:04.190 --> 00:47:09.400
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>When you want to have a hundred iterations of a building you need some other ways to manage that.

00:47:09.431 --> 00:47:14.340
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>But, I agree that a smart performance-based engineering.

00:47:14.840 --> 00:47:21.411
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Just give a ring to the name, performance-based engineering, your engineering performance.

00:47:21.710 --> 00:47:23.300
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>That's the base of your engineering.

00:47:23.300 --> 00:47:26.210
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>You need to know what performance to expect, and once you.

00:47:27.141 --> 00:47:27.831
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>You can do that.

00:47:27.831 --> 00:47:30.021
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I truly think this is of immense value.

00:47:30.380 --> 00:47:36.190
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I also wanted to ask you about this, issues with fire testing that we're testing materials, not systems and so on.

00:47:36.760 --> 00:47:39.581
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I think we're a little running out of time.

00:47:39.940 --> 00:47:45.021
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And I have one question that I want you to answer because you're the only person I know that can answer that.

00:47:45.514 --> 00:47:54.583
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>In your bio I've read, you've dealt a lot with earthquake engineering, wind engineering,, From a perspective of like earthquake engineer.

00:47:55.083 --> 00:48:06.903
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Do you see a thing that exists in earthquake engineering that we do not see in fire engineering or some like strict difference that maybe could be applied to fire engineering?

00:48:07.759 --> 00:48:09.378
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I've never talked to an earthquake engineer.

00:48:09.378 --> 00:48:09.469
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>We

00:48:09.469 --> 00:48:10.699
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>don't have earthquakes in Poland.

00:48:10.699 --> 00:48:15.259
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So maybe in other parts of the world is a bigger field in here.

00:48:15.259 --> 00:48:19.449
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It's just, the damage done by the mines in Silesia region of Poland.

00:48:19.478 --> 00:48:29.177
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>But, it's really interesting because you're dealing with also with high impact accidents that destroy buildings , and structural resiliency's important in this case.

00:48:29.626 --> 00:48:37.177
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And I know that the firefighters who attend these events, they also care about structural stability of the buildings post earthquake.

00:48:37.476 --> 00:48:38.976
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>One of my colleagues in the office is.

00:48:39.961 --> 00:48:46.148
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>An active firefighter and he's a member of earthquake rescue a team of Poland.

00:48:46.148 --> 00:48:53.318
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So when there's a huge earthquake in somewhere in the world, they will just fly to there and they have rescue dogs.

00:48:53.947 --> 00:49:01.958
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And he told me a lot of things about structural stability and how this is the most important thing they assess when entering the area.

00:49:02.378 --> 00:49:03.083
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So as

00:49:03.614 --> 00:49:04.324
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>earthquake engineer

00:49:04.346 --> 00:49:08.516
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>or structural engineer that covers this seismic activities.

00:49:08.545 --> 00:49:11.036
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>You look at the fire engineering and what do you see?

00:49:12.233 --> 00:49:19.463
<v Ali Ashrafi>I think the way we deal with earthquakes is actually a model for how we should be dealing with fire.

00:49:19.612 --> 00:49:27.983
<v Ali Ashrafi>So if you look at the context of seismic design a we've been running numbers, we've been doing actual engineering with real numbers

00:49:28.485 --> 00:49:30.436
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Okay, real numbers.

00:49:30.436 --> 00:49:31.635
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>I'm going to write that down.

00:49:31.947 --> 00:49:38.367
<v Ali Ashrafi>That's just not done as part of the code process for buildings and fire.

00:49:38.697 --> 00:49:43.677
<v Ali Ashrafi>So just doing no real engineering, there is step one.

00:49:43.878 --> 00:49:47.972
<v Ali Ashrafi>and then when you look at that process, we ha we've had simpler approaches.

00:49:48.001 --> 00:49:54.952
<v Ali Ashrafi>And then as we've gone through, improvements in our understanding of building behaviors and also for computation on pick capabilities.

00:49:55.791 --> 00:49:58.672
<v Ali Ashrafi>We've been doing versions of performance-based design.

00:49:58.762 --> 00:50:04.672
<v Ali Ashrafi>At least I would say from eighties and nineties, and initially it was less formalized.

00:50:04.672 --> 00:50:17.422
<v Ali Ashrafi>And then over the years we had to have accumulated so much knowledge and expertise where you could really do great a performance based designed for earthquakes and what  from that process.

00:50:17.452 --> 00:50:22.601
<v Ali Ashrafi>And it's really key as performance-based is on, is basically a rational design.

00:50:23.077 --> 00:50:26.856
<v Ali Ashrafi>You do things that help improve safety.

00:50:26.842 --> 00:50:29.902
<v Ali Ashrafi>But because of that, it's also an optimum design.

00:50:30.413 --> 00:50:35.753
<v Ali Ashrafi>It also means you don't do things that are just a cost and do not provide safety.

00:50:35.753 --> 00:50:38.663
<v Ali Ashrafi>And so you could say I have the same batch of money.

00:50:38.663 --> 00:50:41.992
<v Ali Ashrafi>I'm going to use it in a more efficient way and get a safer building.

00:50:42.202 --> 00:50:47.572
<v Ali Ashrafi>Or if you have a same level of safety as your goal, you can get that.

00:50:47.902 --> 00:50:48.922
<v Ali Ashrafi>Get there with.

00:50:50.213 --> 00:50:52.342
<v Ali Ashrafi>Money because you're doing a more optimal design.

00:50:52.373 --> 00:50:57.922
<v Ali Ashrafi>And so I've done performance space, design design in earthquakes, and you go through the process and you can design the building.

00:50:57.952 --> 00:50:59.932
<v Ali Ashrafi>That's more resilient.

00:51:00.293 --> 00:51:01.822
<v Ali Ashrafi>And cheaper at the same time.

00:51:02.333 --> 00:51:04.552
<v Ali Ashrafi>And when you see that, why not do that?

00:51:05.273 --> 00:51:08.242
<v Ali Ashrafi>It's the same process that you see in fire.

00:51:08.242 --> 00:51:11.693
<v Ali Ashrafi>We've done studies actually ASC and Charles Pankow foundation.

00:51:12.887 --> 00:51:28.757
<v Ali Ashrafi>let us study that we were part of along with a few other engineering firms, a few people from academia, really collaborative work, and we looked at four different buildings and what performance-based design would look for them versus prescriptive design.

00:51:29.358 --> 00:51:33.708
<v Ali Ashrafi>And in all four cases, I would say there, there are running themes.

00:51:34.108 --> 00:51:36.677
<v Ali Ashrafi>One of them was performance-based design is not scary.

00:51:36.677 --> 00:51:42.447
<v Ali Ashrafi>It doesn't put an impossible burden on the design in software design.

00:51:42.447 --> 00:51:49.108
<v Ali Ashrafi>You also saw safety gaps in the prescriptive design, but in most cases, when you look at the performance design, yes.

00:51:50.007 --> 00:51:52.498
<v Ali Ashrafi>More resilient and cheaper at the same time.

00:51:52.918 --> 00:51:55.858
<v Ali Ashrafi>And so that's something to really kind of keep in mind.

00:51:56.367 --> 00:52:05.177
<v Ali Ashrafi>And then I would say that one more way where seismic design should really be a mother for us is even 10, 15 years ago.

00:52:05.177 --> 00:52:08.248
<v Ali Ashrafi>When you looked at a performance based design, we did.

00:52:08.268 --> 00:52:12.378
<v Ali Ashrafi>performance-based designed for very select number of.

00:52:12.925 --> 00:52:14.692
<v Ali Ashrafi>Most buildings were still prescriptive.

00:52:14.722 --> 00:52:19.612
<v Ali Ashrafi>We did real engineering, but it was not the same level of sophistication.

00:52:20.092 --> 00:52:27.262
<v Ali Ashrafi>Nowadays, when you go to a high seismic area and you look at any major building performance-based design has become the norm.

00:52:27.621 --> 00:52:38.646
<v Ali Ashrafi>So for fire, I'm hoping from going from a prescriptive designed to looking at the important buildings, high consequence buildings with real engineering and during the performance space design.

00:52:38.646 --> 00:52:41.197
<v Ali Ashrafi>And I think that's something that's really good benefits.

00:52:41.556 --> 00:52:42.067
<v Ali Ashrafi>What we do.

00:52:42.409 --> 00:52:43.409
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>That's perfect.

00:52:43.800 --> 00:52:53.219
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It's so in line with the previous interviews, you have not heard, it seems that, the smart minds in the fire science think alike, and I really enjoy

00:52:53.219 --> 00:52:53.460
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>that.

00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:55.079
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Okay, Ali thank

00:52:55.079 --> 00:52:56.400
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>you so much for your time.

00:52:56.789 --> 00:53:04.570
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>It was a huge pleasure to discuss structural fire resiliency with you It's going to be an important topic for people to just to reach the knowledge.

00:53:04.619 --> 00:53:09.610
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>You've mentioned no closing the knowledge gap and reaching the firefighters is important.

00:53:10.039 --> 00:53:13.159
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And it's something I'm thinking out of this interview.

00:53:13.639 --> 00:53:17.610
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>So, thank you so much for being here  for spending your time with me.

00:53:18.360 --> 00:53:24.710
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>And,  maybe you have some resources you want people to redirect to, I'm going to redirect them to that great webinar you gave on

00:53:24.710 --> 00:53:25.889
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>the structural fire resiliency.

00:53:25.909 --> 00:53:26.150
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>But,

00:53:26.250 --> 00:53:27.420
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>if there's something else you can let.

00:53:28.416 --> 00:53:28.806
<v Ali Ashrafi>Sure.

00:53:28.867 --> 00:53:34.896
<v Ali Ashrafi>I will certainly send you a few links where a lot of people are working on different aspects of this.

00:53:34.896 --> 00:53:36.606
<v Ali Ashrafi>And so there are resources out there.

00:53:36.606 --> 00:53:38.556
<v Ali Ashrafi>It's not like we want to start from zero.

00:53:39.347 --> 00:54:01.036
<v Ali Ashrafi>I also want to thank you, not just for having me here, but I think what you're doing here in having conversations with people who are touching fire safety from different aspects and perspective is really important because this is a problem that has many aspects and the solutions should be talking to each other, and you're really helping doing that.

00:54:01.036 --> 00:54:01.726
<v Ali Ashrafi>So thank you.

00:54:01.726 --> 00:54:01.847
<v Ali Ashrafi>So.

00:54:01.954 --> 00:54:02.434
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Thank you.

00:54:02.434 --> 00:54:07.114
<v wojciech_wegrzynski-2021-9-14__20-4-19>Thank you for the kind words and yeah, let's make the world a little bit safer together.

00:54:07.175 --> 00:54:07.795
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Thank you, Ali.

00:54:08.074 --> 00:54:08.764
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>See  you around,

00:54:09.067 --> 00:54:09.697
<v Ali Ashrafi>Thank you.

00:54:11.125 --> 00:54:12.045
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And that's it.

00:54:12.375 --> 00:54:13.545
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I hope you enjoyed this.

00:54:13.545 --> 00:54:16.965
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Talk with Ali about how buildings can be resilient for fighting.

00:54:17.699 --> 00:54:20.219
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And support firefighting.

00:54:20.789 --> 00:54:34.139
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>For me to some very interesting discussion with many good points on how can we improve design taking into account the factors that influenced the firefighting actions starting with.

00:54:35.184 --> 00:55:01.650
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Our decisions shaped the battle ground through the role of structural soundness of the building and the structural stability of it and how that influences the firefighters actions and the ability to rescue people the building and finishing with how performance-based engineering is the root for all the good solutions that Ali mentioned.

00:55:01.889 --> 00:55:15.989
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>As I understand for Ali, the fire performance-based engineering is the engineering itself and the way how we can design not only safer buildings, but also cost optimized buildings.

00:55:16.079 --> 00:55:18.909
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's a really profound thought and they also have.

00:55:19.644 --> 00:55:21.025
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>In my own career.

00:55:21.614 --> 00:55:30.525
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>It's very rare that we would improve safety systems in the building, putting in an additional cost on the building.

00:55:31.155 --> 00:55:39.735
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>We usually on our way to that better solutions found ways to make the building cheaper or the solutions cheaper.

00:55:40.155 --> 00:55:44.655
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So it was always a win-win solution for the safety and for the investor.

00:55:45.164 --> 00:55:48.635
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And I'm really happy that he so explicitly put that on the plate.

00:55:49.663 --> 00:55:51.163
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Performance-based engineering.

00:55:51.222 --> 00:56:00.492
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>This not only allow you to make the building safer, but only gives this economical incentive to pursue this goal.

00:56:00.943 --> 00:56:01.123
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And.

00:56:01.552 --> 00:56:09.773
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Having my experience, 11 years in building designs in solving practical issues with buildings.

00:56:10.253 --> 00:56:16.222
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>I know that sometimes without economical incentive, there's very little you can do so.

00:56:16.402 --> 00:56:17.123
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Thanks Ali.

00:56:17.302 --> 00:56:20.302
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>That's a really great fault for all of us.

00:56:20.902 --> 00:56:21.503
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And.

00:56:22.347 --> 00:56:25.557
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Yeah, I hope this can be placed into the practice.

00:56:25.557 --> 00:56:41.188
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And this can be used, as I've mentioned in the intro, Allie has given a lot of practical recommendations that fulfill the prophecies, or they have faults that Brian Meacham has left in the episode 20.

00:56:41.487 --> 00:56:41.818
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So.

00:56:42.393 --> 00:56:52.443
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>If you haven't heard episode 20, that's the moment you switch into that and listen to Brian Meacham because these two episodes accompany each other so well.

00:56:53.072 --> 00:57:04.773
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And yeah, I really hope this starts a discussion into how can we build the fire safe world a little better and a little more optimized.

00:57:04.822 --> 00:57:20.643
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And a little more reasonable way, without spending excessive amount of resources on solutions that don't provide anything and truly focusing on objectives that we would all consider us the safety objectives.

00:57:21.418 --> 00:57:23.307
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Thank you so much for listening.

00:57:23.998 --> 00:57:30.688
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>As usual please share this episode or this podcast with a friend with a colleague.

00:57:31.228 --> 00:57:37.027
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And, I would love to reach as many people as possible with the messages we have in here.

00:57:37.748 --> 00:57:46.677
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>If you think it was valuable for you to spend an hour listening to this episode or the podcast and, it may be also worth for your colleague.

00:57:47.213 --> 00:57:50.543
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Please share the knowledge about the existence of this show.

00:57:51.322 --> 00:58:00.313
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And if you're thriving for more fire science, knowledge and entertainment, please join me next Wednesday.

00:58:00.733 --> 00:58:04.512
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>And yeah, there will be another great episode waiting for you there.

00:58:04.963 --> 00:58:05.443
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>So yeah.

00:58:05.713 --> 00:58:06.913
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>See you next Wednesday.

00:58:07.213 --> 00:58:08.413
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Thanks for being here.

00:58:08.503 --> 00:58:10.753
<v Wojciech Wegrzynski>Thanks for all of your support cheers.