Fire & Life Safety Challenges in Sustainable Tall Building Design

The movement towards sustainable building design can result in unique fire protection challenges and concerns, especially with super tall buildings in relationship to traditional prescriptive code compliance. Different countries haves different code requirements as well as local best practices and may cause conflict with the design features when designing green buildings. These include, but not limited to green roofs, sprinkler water quality and testing, fire department access and areas of refuge with direct or indirect impact by the perspective code compliance. The solutions to these prescriptive code challenges and fire safety concerns can range from simple alternatives to more detailed engineering performance-based design analyses with good solid practice.