Fire safety in architectural envelopes, a feature in the ICAE 2018 façade conference

The fire at Grenfell Tower has highlighted the fire safety of diverse construction materials. The BBC has just released a news item on the works that Dame Judith Hackitt,(commissioned by the United Kingdom government) is developing and whose report was published last December. 

Under no circumstances should a fire of this type reoccur.

• It is not a question of banning certain types of insulation or construction materials in general, but of adopting, in the design phase, projects developed by specialised professionals who understand the complex Fire Safety regulations which are not merely limited to the categorisation of the fire reaction of the materials, but which include aspects related to the safe evacuation of the occupants of buildings as a major objective.
•  It is necessary to insist on the demanding application of the regulation and the proper classification of materials and systems. Following the Grenfell Tower fire, thousands of characterisation tests failed. (See News Item).
• The regulation, technology and procedures are available to the construction industry. Regulatory development and on-site control that eliminate possible short-cuts must be demanded. Large-scale fire propagation standards and tests worldwide, Pablo Garmendia (Fire Safety Laboratory, TECNALIA).

In the eighth edition of the International Conference on Architectural Envelopes (ICAE 2018), which will be held from 20th to 22nd June 2018, at the Kursaal Congress Centre in San Sebastian, Nick Jenkins (Booth Muirie) will offer the specialised point of view of what is happening now and what will happen in the future in ventilated cladding due to the changes driven by Grenfell worldwide. Zigor Marroquín - (ALUCOIL) and Mercedes Sánchez - (ROCKWOOL) help in the prescription of the products and systems that should be adopted in the most demanding situations in relation to fire safety. 

ICAE 2018 preliminary conference programme

Contact: Josean Chica