Advising Brick By Brick on the latest fire safety guidance
Members of our team, led by project director Stewart Dabin have been providing fire safety engineering services and developing robust fire strategies for an exciting mixed-tenure, multi-site residential project in Croydon.
Brick By Brick was established by Croydon Council in 2016 to speed up the delivery of new private and affordable homes for local people, by creating properties for residents to buy or rent across the borough.
Because the project consists of multiple sites, the team’s scope includes coordination between the different project engineers in each pipeline group and ensuring consistency in the fire safety strategy provided for the different sites, an important service that has been effectively managed by project manager, Sarah Ward.
The team is playing an important role in advising the client when fire safety guidance has been evolving, as Stewart explained: “Because we have been involved from the conceptual stage of the project, our work has been critical to determine the potential risks and to proactively highlight them at an early stage so that we can prevent significant future amendments.”
“This project is being designed at a time when changes to the guidance documents are being published and implemented. As such, OFR is providing the latest advice to the client and the design team to keep them up to date with the recent development in the field of fire safety.
“The strategies have been updated to meet the amendments in the guidance documents as significant changes have occurred through the design period of the developments. This was overcome by pre-emptively understanding the changes within the industry, so to reduce the chances that a redesign would be required.”
Brick By Brick’s homes range from semi-detached dwelling houses and apartment blocks to residential towers, and will address the need to accommodate the rapidly growing population of Croydon by transforming unused spaces; formerly old garage sites, underused open spaces, surface level car parks and community facilities to turn them into quality homes. OFR is working on behalf of the client to ensure that the strategies of all the sites are well-coordinated and consistent, whilst also providing bespoke solutions to sites of mixed-use functions.
Brick By Brick employs local contractors and sub-contractors, providing jobs to nearby residents and in turn, stimulating economic activity in the area.
The OFR team has included:
Project director: Stewart Dabin
Project manager(s): Sarah Ward, Stewart Dabin, Fraser McCourt, Gary Marlow, Kieran Watson, Ondrej Vesely.
Project Engineers: Fraser McCourt, Amir Karim, Gary Marlow, Gerard Ronquillo, James Kelland, David Maeso, Liam Caddy, Spencer Turner, Calum Irvine, John Harkin, Scott McEwan, Greg Miller.
