Safety Design in Buildings is one of the leading debating platforms for safety and fire professionals in the construction industry. Initiated in collaboration with Intersec in 2012, the Safety Design in Buildings Campaign debates safety standards and practices in the built environment. Expert speakers will discuss the improved protection of people and buildings by looking at trends in the GCC and construction sector.

The event brings leading fire safety consultants, architects, engineers and testing experts together with safety system suppliers to give updates on industry standards and provide a debating platform for best practice.

Amongst the topics covered the conference programme will feature presentations and discussions including:

Retrofitting for Fire Safety: Assessing operational and business risks and incentives of retrofitting cladding for improved fire safety.

Achieving fire safety in the construction phase: How to best involve the design team to mitigate fire safety risks.

Promoting an organisational culture of prioritising safety: from design, planning, implementation and building operation.

Façade fire compartmentation

Meeting NFPA standards and Fire Safety considerations for major infrastructure projects. Implementation of security planning and design of major events infrastructure.

The first session in the morning will focus on fire and life safety in high rise buildings covering issues such as how safe are our existing buildings and compartmentation of facades as well as a  debate entitled: The Maintainability And Commissionability Of Fire And Life Safety Systems In High Rise Tower Clusters. Fire and life safety systems are commonly engineered and designed based on the operational effectiveness. What is equally important but often overlooked is the ease of maintenance, testing and even commissioning. A fire safety system that cannot be or is difficult to maintain or to test will result is systems not being tested or maintained which in turn will lead to systems not working properly. This presentation highlights the requirements and also typical examples of issues being found in high rise tower cluster projects and will be led by Peter van Gorp, Director of Fire and Life Safety at AESG.

The second session will cover infrastructure for the future focusing on safe and secure mega projects and later it will also look at security and resilience for buildings of the future.