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Sea Containers House Basement Fire Ducts

Location: London, United Kingdom

A building as large as Sea Containers House, with 359 hotel suites and 27,000 m² of office space creating employment for around 2,800 people, has to pay particular attention to the risks associated with fire. Fires beginning in loading bays and other basement areas can be especially devastating.

As basement areas are almost always enclosed spaces with no windows or other means of natural ventilation, there is no external route for heat dispersal in the event of a fire, resulting in significant heat build-up. The movement of smoke is similarly restricted, with the most obvious means of escape being the stairways. This could prove disastrous, as the stairways are also the most obvious means of escape in a fire scenario.

Four-sided box structures were created from Firemac FM Blue, encasing the extractor unit and ducting where necessary, and three-sided structures were created where the ducting extraction equipment was flush against the concrete ceiling. Smoke clearance systems require regular maintenance and must be accessible at all times. To this end, FM Blue panels can be unscrewed easily and then replaced, and a hinged maintenance hatch was created to provide access to the central mechanism.