In April 2008 LHTDesign fire engineer Tim Pike attended the Society of Fire Protection Engineers international three- day conference held in Auckland.
As one of few if any other provincially based fire engineers, Tim joined 175 fire engineering and related delegates from 46 countries to hear presenters cover an incredibly vast range of topics relating to their profession.
Tim Pike noted three key points of significant relevance and importance to our clients:
1. New Zealand legislation is far more definitive than anywhere else in the world.
Kiwis desire for knowledge and our uptake of new information has lead us to the forefront in fire design engineering, perhaps second only to USA.
We have become the leaders in changing the design process from the traditional prescriptive design approach to a performance design approach.
With the emphasis on outcomes, fire designers now work on how to achieve the desired goals with the resulting designs being more innovative, economic and safer.
While many may believe that New Zealand’s high degree of legislative bureaucracy is a hindrance, the reality serves to prove otherwise. In contrast, Scandinavian designers that have little legislative direction are hampered by local authorities and insurance companies fearful of designs that are new or innovative, and so therefore unproven.
2. New Zealand fire designers work is world class.
New Zealand’s building construction industry can be confident that the work undertaken by Kiwi design engineers is miles ahead of other nations (with the exception of USA). Our designers appear to have an inherent understanding of the risks and solutions that international colleagues respect greatly.
3. Fire engineers ‘get into the heads’ of their clients.
It is vitally important that fire engineers listen more than they talk. Rather than explain risks, a good fire engineer needs to ask questions of their clients to understand their expectations, and then listen to the answers without presumption and assumption.
For a design to be effective, the designer needs to talk to all the stakeholders so that the solution is ‘out of the box’ rather than a set box answer.
