A Sociotechnical Systems Framework for Performance-Based Design for Fire Safety

The fundamental construct for performance-based design for fire safety in use today has not significantly changed since the early 1990s. While the current construct has seen some success, performance-based design for fire safety is not as broadly accepted as performance-based design approaches in other building-related engineering disciplines. To advance performance-based design for fire safety, it is proposed to move towards a sociotechnical systems approach. This means changing the starting point from a focus on fire safety objectives as a unique property of buildings, infrastructure, or operations, and considering fire safety as one of several sociotechnical objectives. It also means focusing fire safety analysis and design on system attributes which can be controlled through design, and less on variables for which control is unlikely or not possible. As part of this, consideration of fire safety systems performance should be considered in terms of a ‘fail-safe’ perspective, in which there is less focus on all possible events that could occur, and more on preventing those which could result in unacceptable performance. Evaluation of building fire safety as a sociotechnical systems problem would also need to consider the interactions of all components that contribute to safety over the lifetime of the system, including in-use safety system management and system performance over time.