Practice appoints Fire Safety and Risk Management expert
Buro Happold’s Fire Engineering Design and Risk Assessment (FEDRA) group within the practice’s Specialist Consulting division has appointed Stephen Mackenzie to steer the development of a newly created team.
With the international multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy continually expanding its portfolio of services in response to legislative reforms and clients’ needs, FEDRA has set up a dedicated Fire Safety and Risk Management (FSRM) team to boost its core fire engineering consultancy service.
The formation of a dedicated FSRM team is in response to the recognition that managing fire risk is an essential process throughout the life of a building. Recent fire safety legislative reforms requiring consideration of fire risk during the design, construction and occupation of a building also reflect the importance of fire risk management.
Stephen has 21 years’ experience in the construction industry and international expertise in fire risk assessment and management within the built environment. He said: “Historically, the consideration of fire risk and its management has been fragmented along the lines of key stages in the lifecycle of a building. It is now, quite rightly, acknowledged by regulatory authorities that design and engineering input for fire safety should be managed, maintained and tested over the whole lifecycle of a building.
“The FSRM team will contribute to FEDRA fire strategy projects while developing FSRM to support Specialist Consulting and multi-disciplinary projects, as well as individual clients’ needs.”
Stephen’s has an in-depth knowledge of the complexities of fire safety and fire risk management throughout a building’s lifecycle. He is particularly skilled in the development of risk-based fire safety regimes, which now underpin UK, European and international legislative requirements.
Prior to joining FEDRA, Stephen spent four years developing the fire risk research team and educational provisions at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Robert Gordon University. He also worked with the Fire Risk Engineering team at Glasgow Caledonian University for four years as a researcher and part-time lecturer, and, before that, spent more than 12 years on a vast range of projects in the building services and contracting sectors.
Stephen has presented a number of papers on fire risk to international audiences, is on the Editorial Board of two international fire journals and is technical reviewer on a diverse range of fire related subjects for a number of publishers. Stephen is also a member of a spectrum of national and international working groups on fire risk issues. As part of FEDRA’s knowledge transfer activities he continues to work with a number of universities to advance the integration of fire safety and risk management theory, policy and practice.
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Background information for editors:
Press office and practice information at www.burohappold.com
Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976 offering civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, quantity surveying, building services and environmental engineering, health and safety management, infrastructure and traffic engineering, ground engineering, façade engineering, fire engineering, computational fluid dynamics analysis, disability design consultancy, project management, urban design and a range of specialist CAD services.
Ruth Hobbs
Telephone +44 (0)113 204 2201
Fax +44 (0)870 787 4144
Email ruth.hobbs@burohappold.com
