Rethinking Fire Life Safety Design Beyond the Code
Building codes establish minimum requirements for fire life safety. However, modern projects increasingly demand more than prescriptive compliance as they become more creative and complex. Contemporary fire life safety design can operate creatively along a spectrum of performance, from prescriptive compliance and minor deviations addressed through alternate materials and methods to advanced analyses involving fire modeling, egress simulation, resilience-informed strategies, and performance-based structural fire engineering under realistic fire exposures.
Rather than treating performance-based fire design as a specialized tool reserved for iconic or high-profile projects, this webinar will reframe the design conversation and demonstrate how performance-based thinking can be applied in daily practice. We will examine how small design alternatives can evolve into quantified engineering analyses using fire and egress modeling tools to justify solutions that extend beyond strict prescriptive limits while maintaining technical rigor and regulatory credibility.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After attending this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Distinguish code intent from prescriptive language and understand alternate approach requests.
- Recognize how fire and egress modeling tools can justify solutions beyond prescriptive requirements.
- Understand structural fire engineering approaches.
- Discuss resilience-informed fire design.
Participants will earn 1 AIA CES Learning Unit (LU/HSW) for attending the seminar. Registration is free. Please note that space is limited – email events@sgh.com to join our waitlist if the session is closed when you register.
About the Speaker
Qianru Guo is passionate about fire engineering, particularly related to performance-based design. She is an integral member of SGH’s Fire Engineering Division, working on life and fire safety code consulting, performance-based structural fire design, structural finite element analysis, heat transfer analysis, and computational fluid dynamics simulation. Qianru is a committee member of the Fire Protection group in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA-5000 and NFPA-101).
Tom Jaleski focuses on creative solutions for even the most mundane code issues, with broad experience helping project teams navigate building, fire, and accessibility codes for new, existing, and historic buildings. He specializes in interpreting complex requirements, assessing existing conditions, and developing creative custom compliance strategies that balance safety, innovation, and project goals. With architecture experience across commercial, assembly, residential, aviation, and storage facilities nationwide, Tom is known for collaborating closely with architects, engineers, and building officials to resolve challenging code issues and secure alternative compliance approvals. He brings a creative, solutions-oriented approach to every project, helping clients achieve safer and more effective built environments
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