Buro Happold provides people-flow solutions for all indoor spaces and situations
Free, uncongested flow within urban and built spaces is, crucially, an issue of safety and security – while comfort and visitor experience are also major factors in most circumstances.
People movement modelling helps everybody involved in the process to optimise the design, space layout and operational management of a building; from architects, planners and developers to fire engineers, regulators and security advisers.
With optimum escape routes in place, crowd-related disasters like the Heisel Stadium tragedy may be avoided: in an every day context, airport terminals and other public spaces can be designed internally to allow a maximum number of people to circulate and rest in comfort, without congestion-related queuing. Profit can also be maximised, by locating revenue centres in areas of maximum footfall.
Buro Happold’s expertise in this field includes not only design and modelling, but real-time data capture, research on crowd safety design, computer analysis of behaviour under both routine and emergency situations, and safe disembarkation from various modes of transport.
Optimising both operational and emergency strategies
“Ultimately, our goal is to optimise both normal operation and emergency evacuation management strategies,” explained Buro Happold’s Dr Shrikant Sharma; an engineer, numerical modeller and software developer who heads up the practice’s SMART team, which is dedicated to delivering simple and innovative solutions to complex engineering problems.
“The key aspect of crowd flow study involves capturing, analysing and modelling user behaviour and movement patterns, and then mapping them onto the spatial layout of the new building, to optimise design and management strategies,” he said. “We enable the design team to identify potential problems in terms of space provision, and the effects on comfort, safety and management. By forecasting activity patterns and flow rates, we can optimise the provision of routes, entrances, exits and stairways to improve the ease of circulation – enhancing the performance of the building in the long term too.”
Buro Happold’s SMART team develops proprietary software to model all aspects of crowd circulation – SmartNetwork is used for conceptual design and space analysis, and EventCounter enables sophisticated data capture. Meanwhile, SmartMove can model thousands of occupants circulating and evacuating a building, with inbuilt optimisation capability.
“Our starting point is to optimise the architectural layout of the circulation space using a static network model,” said Sharma. “Then, with sophisticated dynamic simulations, and population behaviour and management criteria, we can provide the best detailed design and management provisions.” This integrated approach is particularly helpful for solving problems involving complex passenger itinerary and multimodal transport links (air, rail, coach, cars and pedestrian).
All analysis can and should be fully integrated with other disciplines – Buro Happold’s crowd flow and safety modelling engineers will work in tandem with operational management and architectural, structural and building services design teams, as well as with security designers.
Buro Happold has successfully applied its crowd flow management and modelling techniques to several high-profile projects, including the London 2012 Media Centre, Liverpool’s Kings Waterfront, the MMU Business School, the Thomas Deacon Academy, Barcelona’s Rail Terminals and Jeddah Airport’s Hajj Terminal.
Two million pilgrims pass through Jeddah airport’s Hajj terminal in a six-week period
Jeddah’s King Abdul Aziz International Airport Hajj Terminal is, at 5 million square feet, the fourth largest in the world; and up to two million pilgrims pass through it during the six weeks of the Hajj in an average year. The striking tent-like roof spans a space which can accommodate up to 80,000 travellers at the same time. With this in mind, Buro Happold carried out detailed simulations of the arrival and departure areas, looking at capacity, comfort and design, as well as at the management of all the facilities.
“The space had to be analysed in the context of existing IATA guidelines, and then we identified the key realistic scenarios for dynamic simulation,” said Sharma. “Only then could we test them against passenger waiting times and densities.”
Buro Happold also successfully carried out people-flow design for the Millennium Dome (now the O2 Arena), whose design was rigorously analysed and tested to cope with the emergency evacuation of several hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Meanwhile, the Thomas Deacon Academy is a secondary school for over 2,000 pupils and staff in Peterborough. To optimise the design for this modern school (which encourages a university-style environment and replaces traditional lessons with seminars, lectures and tutorials), Buro Happold’s crowd flow modelling has added real value.
A pupil-flow model was created to predict circulation patterns and congestion ‘hot spots’ based around the timetable and layout, and then to design in measures for safe movement. Issues such as stairwell and corridor congestion at tutor group changeovers were taken into account, and the resulting design and building management procedures have resulted in substantial time, cost and efficiency savings across the lifetime of the building.
Overall, whatever the situation, crowd flow and control modelling makes buildings safer, easier to manage and often more profitable – an essential service in today’s super-size venues, and security-conscious times.
Ends
Note to Editors:
Buro Happold
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Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976. We now employ over 1,700 staff in 21 offices worldwide, and our aim is to produce high quality engineering design in concept, in detail and in execution, on time, to programme and delivering excellent value for money. Our distinctive culture and ethos is still based on the same principles of care, value and elegance that were established when the practice was founded.
We offer structural, building services, civil, infrastructure and façade engineering, as well as a broad range of specialist consultancy services including sustainability, ground and environmental engineering, fire and security design, health and safety management, inclusive and urban design, project management, and specialist CAD and computer simulation provision.
