Fire Protection and Fire Safety Design of New Zealand Heritage Building

The application of performance-based fire safety engineering has enabled the conservation of a heritage building in New Zealand. McDougall House is a two-story heritage building which suffered extensive damages during the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. The scope of repair work carried out included the preservation and restoration of the building external facade, the restoration of the ornamental plasterwork ceiling within the Ballroom, the reconstruction of all damaged internal wall linings, the adaptation of the fireplace, and the reconstruction of the damaged chimney. The fire safety design adopted is the Verification Method C/VM2 with As Nearly As is Reasonably Practicable consideration for the heritage fabrics of the building. The combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses, including smoke and egress modelling, assessment of allowable unprotected areas in external wall for horizontal fire spread, and benefit versus sacrifice analysis on the heritage fabrics have demonstrated compliance with the ten design scenarios of C/VM2, retaining the majority of the cultural heritage values, and also improving the level of fire safety of the building.