The winners of the 2006 FSE design awards were presented with their certificates at Firex North in Harrogate last month. The Fire Safety Engineering Award went to Arup Fire for its work into the city centre development of Amethyst House in Manchester – a nine storey building with an atrium from the ground floor to the top. The award for small- to- medium projects was won by Warrington Fire and the winner of the best engineered solution for a residential premises went to Nu-Cam Systems.
The judges were impressed with the way Arup carried out a cost-benefit analysis to show that the provision of sprinklers would enable savings on other measures, for example atrium glazing, reduced structural fire protection ratings and reduced stair core sizes.
The runner up in the FSE Award category was Burro Happold for the Telford College project in Edinburgh.
Two new categories were introduced for this year’s awards. The award for the best engineered solution for small-to-medium projects went to Warrington Fire, for its role in the redevelopment of Spitalfields Market in London. A detailed use of CFD smoke flow analysis was able to show that existing ventilation was sufficient for the safe escape of people from new two storey covered pavilions in the market. The runner up in this category was Trenton Fire for its work on the Wincanton Distribution Centre in Kettering.
Finally, the winner of the best fire engineered solution for a residential premises went to Nu-Cam Systems for the Galliard Apart Hotel in London. An imaginative combination of video smoke detection and beam detection was installed to confirm the presence of smoke from a fire, before activating an automatic drenching system. There was no runner-up in this category.
The judging panel consisted of Bob Docherty, secretary general of the Institute of Fire Safety Managers; Graham Ellicott, chief executive of the Association for Specialist Fire Protection; John Northey, consultant editor of FSE; Nigel Smithies of BRE; Colin Todd, IFE board member and an independent consultant; professor Kuldeep Virdi, director of the Engineering Structures Research Centre at City University; and Ron Alalouff, editor of FSE.
