The Need for Fire Safety Performance-Based Design in an Increasingly Prescriptive Environment

Numerous life-loss events over the past two decades have reinforced the need to critically examine how the architectural and engineering community approaches fire and life safety for innovative new and complex existing buildings alike. Recent incidents demonstrate that standardized approaches to performance-based analysis need to be implemented by designers, and that a system to vet those designs should more readily be accommodated by public agencies responsible for review. While advances in structural analysis and building modeling have facilitated the design of structures that expand the imagination, the approach to fire and life safety has not evolved at the same pace. This paper examines the relationship between failure analysis and the use of Performance-Based Design in the built environment. The role of post-incident analyses in discovering previously unknown behaviors and the translation of scientifically based analysis into a workable design framework is addressed. Additionally, the contribution of empirical data and the importance of establishing standards of practice that inform how professional engineers should approach their designs is explored in the context of a healthy Performance-Based Design ecosystem.