Don't Get Burned by Performance-Based Design
New white paper outlines potential pitfalls of design concept
Architecture can give companies and cities character. It can be the first of its kind. Yet if stylish, new performance-based designs involve unproven fire protection, their mark could be burned into history in an unintended way.
Performance-based building design may sound attractive. However, it could mean designing and evaluating a structure based on what it can do, not on what design specifications have been proven and dictated by a code or tradition.
Proving that an untested building design—one that falls outside proven prescriptions—will deliver the required fire protection can be difficult, if not impossible. Add to that fire's non-linear behavior and even small variables in fire events, and the results can be dramatically disparate.
Download the new white paper written by FM Global Vice President and Manager of International Codes and Standards, Christopher Wieczorek, Ph.D. Find out how the performance-based design concept differs from prescriptive design, so you can help leave the right kind of mark on history.
Find out more about FM Global's international codes and standards group.
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