Residential Buildings Fire Safety Application for iPhone / iPad Devices

Abstract

This paper describes the processes followed for the creation of a fire safety application for iPhone/iPad devices, which, for educational reasons, has produced R&D and is applicable to professional practice, and is based on two, apparently unconnected points: 1. University teaching, research and the professional practice of architecture should not be unconnected activities, but the complex reality of the world of construction means that they are seen as separate. / 2. It is obvious that many technological tools such as PC tablets, smartphones… are being used by the general public in their everyday lives. With these precedents, the aim of the project was to create a software program so that a student, lecturer or professional architect could, at any time or any place, use the tool to calculate the main fire safety parameters for a residential building (number of sectors, occupation, structure resistance and dimensions of the evacuation routes) obtaining a result which, beyond regional or national regulations, assesses the appropriateness of the proposal. Thus, based on the Spanish norms, and with reference to the Performance Based Design so as to be applicable to any project, we have a simple software program which returns the mentioned parameters with the input of only six pieces of data on the building.