Santos, Brisbane

A modern office design incorporating eight (8) storeys of interconnected office floors within a 36 storey high rise office tower was subjected to a comprehensive life safety analysis to demonstrate compliance with performance based fire codes.

April 2009
SANTOS office tenancy
Levels 18 – 25 at Northbridge, 32 Turbot Street, Brisbane, Queensland.

The commercial office building known as ‘SANTOS Place’ is located in the CBD of Brisbane and represents an important benchmark in modern office design. The 36-storey state-of-the-art commercial tower, is in the North Quarter precinct in Brisbane’s CBD.

Building services and finishes reflect a Property Council Australia “A” Grade building with an Australian Building Greenhouse Rating (ABGR- NABERS) of 5 Stars and 6 Star Green Star.

The design development incorporated eight (8) office floors interconnected by open stair arrangements while achieving compatibility with the Building Code of Australia.

The introduction of innovative smoke/fire separation systems ensured that the interconnected office levels did not impact on the base building smoke hazard management systems and occupant egress provisions.

Scientific Fire Services Pty Limited conducted a comprehensive fire safety engineering assessment of the proposed design in order permit the design team to develop a more flexible, rational and logical basis of achieving specific design goals.

The design was supported by sophisticated engineering analysis which resulted in satisfying the architectural vision of a modern state of the art office environment.

Intercommunication between floor levels by the staff within the eight (8) storey tenancy was the critical design factor.

The design objectives and life safety objectives were achieved and compatibility between base building systems and additional innovative fire safety systems were also realised.

The basis of the fire safety engineering approach included:

• Flexible occupant egress provisions adopted throughout the eight storey tenancy.
• Open stairs interconnecting floor levels.
• Automatic smoke curtain arrangement around central open stairs.
• Compatibility with base building stair pressurisation and zoned smoke control systems achieved.

The assessment involved extensive Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling in order to ensure the smoke hazard management system performance was compatible with the life safety goals established by the design team.

Detailed computer occupant movement simulations were conducted (utilising Simulex3-0) for the entire eight (8) storey tenancy office building to determine if effectiveness of the occupant egress design and to ensure acceptable levels of occupant life safety was achieved.

Additional multiple fire scenarios were evaluated to determine the life safety performance of the proposed design specific to the multiple open stair arrangement.