More On Highrise Safety

The debate on building safety continues...

Building Safety Journal
Fire Protection - The Fire Service Viewpoint?, Building Safety Journal, January-February 2004, (available online at the time of this writing) rebuts charges that current building standards allow construction of buildings that are unsafe for firefighters during building fires. This article, authored by fire protection engineer Richard C. Schulte, is perhaps most noteworthy for the prominence granted to it by its publication in the International Code Council's flagship journal. This author found the arguments put forth in the article less than compelling.

Metropolis Magazine
Shortcuts to Safety, Metropolis Magazine, March 2004, takes the position that "Two and a half years after the worst tragedy in skyscraper history, highrises are no safer." This is an informative article offering insights this author has not encountered elsewhere on this topic. Whether or not one agrees with its premise, this article is worth the attention of those concerned with the topic.

Some of the key points raised in this article include:

• The Skyscraper Safety Campaign, founded by the family of a firefighter lost in the disaster, has played a prominent role in raising issues of building safety and pushing for investigation into the causes of the building collapses. According to the article, this group was partially responsible for the creation of the ongoing investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
• Though building safety standards are enforced through public regulation, the standards themselves are crafted in the private sector, and to a significant extent by the same parties with an interest in minimizing building costs. As an example, the article cites New York City's own building regulation department, the Department of Building, that has a dual mission of maintaining building safety while also "streamlining the occupancy of new and existing office space".
• According to sources quoted in the article, the standards of safety applied to the World Trade Center towers were sufficiently lax that these buildings could not have been built in Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, or even possibly in any American city--including New York City--if they had had to meet local building code requirements. (The developer of the towers, the Port Authority of New York is exempt from City building and fire department regulation.)
• Trends in construction since World War II toward lighter construction materials and assemblies have resulted in building systems that some argue are less resistant to fire and that are less safe for building occupants and fire fighters.

The article also discusses the reconstruction of Seven WTC, the 47-story highrise that collapsed due to fire some hours after the two main towers. The new building, dubbed "Seven II", is being built to standards significantly in excess of current code requirements including a reinforced concrete core, fire sprinklers with double the required supply capacity, exit stairs 20 percent wider than required, and other safety features. The article also notes that these enhancements may reflect both the developer's good intentions and/or economic realities of insuring a building in this sensitive location.

For more on this topic, see the previous articles on this site:
Fire-Safe Debate
The Current State of Fire Protection Design
Debate Over Fire Testing