Building Safety Architecture

About the Book

This book is intended to assist architects, engineers, and contractors to better understand, design, and construct buildings and other structures to protect occupants from natural and manmade threats. This is done, in the context of building safety, a review of both historical and current provisions, an examination of human behaviour in life threatening conditions, details of contemporary building emergency design provisions, documentation of current codes and design practices, and presentation of quantitative methods for evaluating the risk and reliability of different combinations of emergencies, building designs, and occupant characteristics. The subject matter is relatively unique because it is based on a meld of architectural and structural design and reliability engineering experience of the author acquired through over 50 years of practice.

About the Author

Following undergraduate studies in physics, architecture, engineering, and art, and a bachelor degree, Frank Bercha worked in architectural and engineering design and field operations for several years. He moved on to graduate studies in structural engineering, culminating in a PhD in probabilistic shell structure design. He then worked extensively in risk and safety engineering and design of structures to resist extreme environments such as Arctic offshore ice and weather. In 1975, he started his own company and architectural partnership, which evolved into a multinational consulting organization with offices in several cities in Canada, as well as ones in USA Colombia, and Malaysia. His services expanded to include geomatics and remote sensing and acquired an airborne side looking radar (SLAR) and aircraft to carry out mapping of areas ranging from the Arctic offshore ice to tropical jungles collecting and analyzing data for use in design of facilities in these locations. In 2012 he completed a DSc in architecture including a thesis on building safety architecture, which forms part of the basis for this book. His professional practice over the last 50 years includes specialization in the design and analysis of complex structures and their risk and reliability under a range of conditions including natural and manmade threats in urban, rural, Arctic, temperate, onshore or offshore environments. He has worked as a consultant, designer, university lecturer, and expert witness with the majority of his work as a consultant directed at completing projects and solving associated complex risk and reliability problems. Applications include residential and commercial buildings, land use planning, onshore and offshore oil and gas operations, rail, road, air, and pipeline transportation, and associated safety and reliability. He serves on numerous national and international organizations such as the ISO, testified before numerous regulatory and legal tribunals, and authored hundreds of refereed technical publications in probabilistic design, safety and reliability, and offshore and onshore emergency procedures. This unique book integrates the basis and details of applying the combined methodologies of risk analysis, architecture, engineering and construction, for use by architects, engineers, builders, regulators, lawyers, teachers, and members of the public, to ensure safe and reliable function, optimal aesthetics, and durability of their creations.