Projects
Education Section
Fire Safety Upgrade works at DIT College Bolton St. and Cathal Brugha St. Dublin 1
Fire Safety Consultancy Services to ascertain the existing level of Fire Safety Compliance with current Building Regulations Part B (Fire) standards and to establish the minimum level of fire safety upgrade works required to bring the buildings up to the minimum required fire safety standard.
Involving the following:
Fire Safety Inspection of existing Bolton Street premises.
Preparation of Fire Safety Audit listing fire safety deficiencies including upgrade works to meet minimum fire safety standards.
Develop costing for fire safety upgrade works in conjunction with QS & Architect.
Prepare Fire Safety Certificate Application (to implement fire safety upgrade works).
Assist in the preparation of tender documents,
Assist in the supervision of the works,
Final “Certification of Compliance” upon completion of works,
Design Team Meetings & Liaison with Local Fire Authority.
(Due to its protected status the architectural merit of the buildings had to be conserved as part of the upgrade works.)
This project along with other DIT schemes which we were commissioned to handle was unique in a sense from other projects engaged in by this office in that the fire safety upgrade works commissioned by DIT was instigated internally under a pro-active approach to achieve a high level of Fire Safety so as to meet their obligations under Health & Safety legislation.
The project required a thorough systematic fire safety audit of the building which in turn developed a schedule of fire safety upgrade works which directed the project. Under normal design circumstances other functional requirements/specification usually dictates the development of a project. In this instance however the project was entirely fire safety focused.
The application of the fire safety upgrades took careful planning and co-ordination of the “live” working environment of the educational facility whilst also taking account of the architectural merits of the building itself and structuring the upgrade work so as to be sympathetic to the conservation objective for this building.
The listed nature of the building required a higher level of fire safety engineering and imaginative compensating design to be applied, as opposed to prescriptive fire-safety-code design approaches, to achieve the duel objectives of fire safety and conservation required by D.I.T.
