Time to smoke out a new solution

摘要

Designing fire safety into residential apartment blocks has always been problematical for architects, usually due to the conflict between the spatial and functional objectives, and the fire safety requirements of compartmentation and separation. One area which has probably caused more heartache for designers than any other is the need to provide ventilation to 'common' corridors or lobbies in residential blocks. The move away from designing apartments either side of long corridors spanning the length of the building, to designing central cores surrounded by apartments, has further exacerbated this problem. The technical standards detailed in Building Regulations Approved Document B: Fire Safety (ADB) make recommendations for the ventilation of common corridors or lobbies. The guidance includes diagrams indicating a simple method of ventilating these common spaces by using windows direct to open air, which may be manual or automatic in operation, depending on the layout of the building.