Group 7. Improved Procedures and Practices

The procedures and practices used in the design, construction, maintenance, and operation of buildings should be improved to include encouraging code compliance by nongovernmental and quasi-governmental entities, adoption and application of egress and sprinkler requirements in codes for existing buildings, and retention and availability of building documents over the life of a building.

Recommendation 25. Nongovernmental and quasi-governmental entities that own or leased buildings and are not subject to building and fire safety code requirements of any governmental jurisdiction are nevertheless concerned about the safety of the building occupants and the responding emergency personnel. NIST recommends that such entities should be encouraged to provide a level of safety that equals or exceeds the level of safety that would be provided by strict compliance with the code requirements of an appropriate governmental jurisdiction. To gain broad public confidence in the safety of such buildings, NIST further recommends that it is important that as-designed and as-built safety be certified by a qualified third party, independent of the building owner(s). The process should not use self-approval for code enforcement in areas including interpretation of code provisions, design approval, product acceptance, certification of the final construction, and post-occupancy inspections over the life of the buildings.

Magnusson: "The NIST statement that some entities "are not subject to building and fire safety code requirements of any governmental jurisdiction" is not correct. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is subject to its own requirements and it is a governmental jurisdiction.

Also, it is a fact is that no federal or state project is required to meet a city building code. This inventory constitutes thousands of buildings. However, in every case that I know of, the governmental entity simply uses or betters the requirements of the local codes. All agencies have internal reviews of designs performed by architects and engineers and most already use independent third-party technical peer reviews for significant structures. There are no non-governmental entities exempt from codes (except possibly Disney in Florida and it developed its own code)."

Schulte: "Based upon everything I seen and heard about the construction of the WTC towers, the Port Authority did a more than adequate job of constructing and maintaining the buildings."

Recommendation 26. NIST recommends that state and local jurisdictions should adopt and aggressively enforce available provisions in building codes to ensure that egress and sprinkler requirements are met by existing buildings. Further, occupancy requirements should be modified where needed (such as when there are assembly use spaces within an office building) to meet the requirements in model building codes.

Magnusson: "This is a good recommendation."

Schulte: "The experience in Chicago after the fire in the Cook County Administration Building is instructive-the mayor and the city council opposed the enforcement of state law which requires that all existing high-rise buildings be sprinklered."

Recommendation 27. NIST recommends that building codes should incorporate a provision that requires building owners to retain documents, including supporting calculations and test data, related to building design, construction, maintenance and modifications over the entire life of the building. Means should be developed for offsite storage and maintenance of the documents. In addition, NIST recommends that relevant building information should be made available in suitably designed hard copy or electronic format for use by emergency responders. Such information should be easily accessible by responders during emergencies.

Magnusson: "Most jurisdictions already keep building plans. It is a good recommendation that building owners keep a set of their building’s plans. Calculations are not a part of the design and there is no need to keep them. It is a good recommendation that emergency responders have access to building plans both before and during emergencies.

Schulte: "Just how often would a set of building drawings be useful to the fire department in an emergency? Imagine fire department personnel thumbing through a set of drawings for the WTC towers on 9/11."

Recommendation 28. NIST recommend that the role of the "Design Professional in Responsible Charge" should be clarified to ensure that: (1) all appropriate design professionals (including, e.g., the fire protection engineer) are part of the design team providing the standard of care when designing buildings employing innovative or unusual fire safety systems, and (2) all appropriate design professionals (including, e.g., the structural engineer and the fire protection engineer) are part of the design team providing the standard of care when designing the structure to resist fires, in buildings that employ innovative or unusual structural and fire safety systems.

Magnusson: "NIST conducted no research into relative safety records for building designs that used or didn’t use fire protection and/or structural engineers. Any recommendation without this science is inappropriate. The code should not be used to "make work" for any design discipline without a scientific public safety basis. In the case of fire protection engineers, their involvement traditionally does not increase fireproofing requirements, but rather, reduces them."

Schulte: "This recommendation implies that there were problems with the design of the WTC towers. The performance of the towers on 9/11 was magnificent. Design teams will incorporate fire protection engineers where there is a need."

Group 8. Education and Training

The professional skills of building and fire safety professionals should be upgraded though a national education and training effort for fire protection engineers, structural engineers, and architects.

Recommendation 29. NIST recommends that continuing education curricula should be developed and programs should be implemented for training fire protection engineers and architects in structural engineering principles and design, and training structural engineers, architects, and fire protection engineers in modern fire protection principles and technologies, including fire-resistance design of structures.

Magnusson: "This is a good recommendation."

Schulte: "In my opinion, fire protection engineering is a relatively simple discipline. The need to implement this recommendation would only be necessary if NIST succeeds in making building design much more complicated by the adoption of some of the other recommendations included in this report."

Recommendation 30. NIST recommends that academic, professional short-course, and web-based training materials in the use of computational fire dynamics and thermo-structural analysis tools should be developed and delivered to strengthen the base of available technical capabilities and human resources.

Magnusson: "This is a good recommendation."

Schulte: "Quite frankly, it’s my opinion that what NIST is proposing is far too complex to work in the real world. Design professionals, code enforcement professionals and the fire service all have difficulty with our present-day codes. Imagine what would happen if this recommendation were implemented."

...could be put in the command center itself. However, command centers can be designed for code-basis hazards. Other protocols are outside of building design."