Arcades and escape route stairs with unprotected steel members

Arcades and escape route stairs

In recent years, arcade walkways have regained architectural popularity because they have a number of advantages. There are more single households and therefore smaller residential units. In order to access these as effectively as possible, there is a covered corridor that is open on one side: the so-called arcade corridor. Another advantage is that the windows of the accessible units can be used as the first escape route, since the smoke extraction from the arcade is guaranteed. So they serve as escape route stairs. For this reason, arcades are also arranged in administration buildings, schools and day-care centers.

Fire protection of arcades with unprotected steel members

In order to be able to exploit the advantage as an escape route, the load-bearing structure of the arcade must meet the respective fire resistance class of the building, e.g R30 (fire-retardant; old designation F30) for building classes 1 to 3.

If I am involved in projects at an early stage, it is often possible to design the supports of the access walkway without fire protection for a fire resistance period of R30 (F30). This not only eliminates significant one-off costs for constructive fire protection, but also regular operating costs (e.g. for replacing intumescent coatings) . In addition, exposed steel columns are attractive from an architectural point of view. In one of my projects, for example, I was able to design the support shown on the right in the picture with a fire design for a fire resistance period of R30 through targeted oversizing.

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