Comparative Study Between Saudi and ADB code on Safety Measures and Means of Egress Required in High-Rise Building

Abstract

Building regulations illustrate a particular part of the life cycle to ensure with a maximum capacity the safety measures and the definitive egress requirements are met when designing and building a project. However, the public enquiries and questions posed to the construction industry following the Grenfell tower incident proved otherwise. Review reports by specialists showed gaps in terms of regulations, testing and maintenance, ignorance on specific requirements when upgrading existing buildings, and many more flaws. Therefore, it is critical that building regulations are robust and flexible when used as references and guidance to develop high risk or high-risk buildings. The Saudi Building Code (SBC) that inherits a lot of accordance from the NFPA codes. BS EN codes are the equivalent of the NFPA codes, where the approved document of building regulations (ADB) illustrates the equivalent of the SBC. In this dissertation, the SBC and ADB are compared under the context of means of escape, fire spread, accessibility, safety measures, and active fire protection. The dissertation highlights the practicality of using the SBC code based on the design of Grenfell tower specifications in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The resultant of the dissertation is a set of recommendations to enhance both codes.