As a result of lessons learned about making skyscrapers safer in the aftermath of 9/11, New York City Council's Committee on Buildings and Housing enacted new legislation. Builders must now comply with NYC local law 26, both prospectively and retroactively. Part of this new law involves measures that will facilitate evacuation of occupants in the event of an emergency. Other mandates have been promulgated to prevent, or at least retard, the full-scale collapse of high-rise structures.
Many of these new regulations involve improving signage leading to fire exits, independent power supplies for signs indicating where the fire exits are located and phospholuminescent markers of safety exits. These provisions were to have been implemented within two or three years following the announcement of NYC 26. Other measures, involving improved sprinkler systems, are to be in place no later than July 1, 2019.
As the 9/11 incident was unfolding, those occupants of the Twin Towers who were in the lower floors, below the floors that were impacted by the planes, had a high rate of survival due to the comparative ease with which they were evacuated. One of the findings that led to NYC 26 was that the planes had severed the pipes to the sprinkler systems.
Efforts to exit the building were further hampered by the occupants' inability to find their way to the fire exits. This is why NYC 26 mandates improvements to signage, adding photoluminescent markings and powered exit signs. The architectural firm in charge of rebuilding the World Trade Center, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), is in the process of developing a system that will permit occupants to make limited use of elevators in the event of an evacuation from the higher floors.
Counter-intuitive to conventional wisdom that evacuees should never use an elevator to get out of a burning building, the new system reduces evacuation times by more than twenty percent. A similar system is in place at the 168-storey Burj Kalifa in Dubai and is being proposed for use in a 108-floor building in South Korea. Retraining human behavior is going to be a major obstacle in getting people to use the newer, safer elevators. Tenants will need to be re-educated on how to implement new security and safety measures.
Architects of the next generation of skyscrapers in the United States are taking an open-minded look at how designers in other countries are approaching these problems. One feature that future historians will be talking about is the inclusion of wider staircases that will allow more people to exit buildings faster. A page from the British book of skyscraper design describing special staircases for the use of emergency services personnel is also being avidly read by today's skyscraper designers.
New York is not the only city in the country, or even the world, that has learned lessons from 9/11. Builders all over the world are trying to make skyscrapers safe for occupants and workers. Los Angeles, where long-suffering architects have been trying to design high-rise structures to withstand earthquakes and strong winds, are also striving to improve security and safer in skyscrapers.
The world will never be perfectly safe. Even if the ultimate high-rise can be designed that will not collapse, at least before everyone has left the building, there will be new sinister threats to take the place of high-rise fires.
Many of these new regulations involve improving signage leading to fire exits, independent power supplies for signs indicating where the fire exits are located and phospholuminescent markers of safety exits. These provisions were to have been implemented within two or three years following the announcement of NYC 26. Other measures, involving improved sprinkler systems, are to be in place no later than July 1, 2019.
As the 9/11 incident was unfolding, those occupants of the Twin Towers who were in the lower floors, below the floors that were impacted by the planes, had a high rate of survival due to the comparative ease with which they were evacuated. One of the findings that led to NYC 26 was that the planes had severed the pipes to the sprinkler systems.
Efforts to exit the building were further hampered by the occupants' inability to find their way to the fire exits. This is why NYC 26 mandates improvements to signage, adding photoluminescent markings and powered exit signs. The architectural firm in charge of rebuilding the World Trade Center, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), is in the process of developing a system that will permit occupants to make limited use of elevators in the event of an evacuation from the higher floors.
Counter-intuitive to conventional wisdom that evacuees should never use an elevator to get out of a burning building, the new system reduces evacuation times by more than twenty percent. A similar system is in place at the 168-storey Burj Kalifa in Dubai and is being proposed for use in a 108-floor building in South Korea. Retraining human behavior is going to be a major obstacle in getting people to use the newer, safer elevators. Tenants will need to be re-educated on how to implement new security and safety measures.
Architects of the next generation of skyscrapers in the United States are taking an open-minded look at how designers in other countries are approaching these problems. One feature that future historians will be talking about is the inclusion of wider staircases that will allow more people to exit buildings faster. A page from the British book of skyscraper design describing special staircases for the use of emergency services personnel is also being avidly read by today's skyscraper designers.
New York is not the only city in the country, or even the world, that has learned lessons from 9/11. Builders all over the world are trying to make skyscrapers safe for occupants and workers. Los Angeles, where long-suffering architects have been trying to design high-rise structures to withstand earthquakes and strong winds, are also striving to improve security and safer in skyscrapers.
The world will never be perfectly safe. Even if the ultimate high-rise can be designed that will not collapse, at least before everyone has left the building, there will be new sinister threats to take the place of high-rise fires.
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