In the early hours of 14 June 2017, one of the worst fires in London’s modern history ripped through Grenfell Tower in Kensington. As the city woke to the news, there was little that could be done but watch helplessly as the residential block burned. The scale of the devastation, put down in part to the nature of the building’s cladding, was colossal.
Since the tragedy in which 72 people lost their lives, a series of other high-profile fires have occurred across the globe.
Two months after the Grenfell disaster, a serious fire broke out in the Torch Tower, Dubai, one of the world’s tallest residential towers.
In June 2018, Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh Building was gutted in a fire that broke out as a £36m restoration project, following a blaze four years earlier, was nearing completion.
In April this year a devastating blaze ripped through the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, resulting in the total decimation of its famous spire, and in June, a significant fire broke out at a block of residential flats in Barking, east London.
These events have put fire safety firmly in the spotlight as concerns grow around whether the buildings we spend our lives in are as safe as they should and, indeed, need to be. So could this be where tech comes in?
A number of proptech companies are working hard to understand and promote the role it can play both in the pre- and post-fire stages of fire safety, whether that is helping to reduce the risk of fires breaking out in the first place or rebuilding and restoring assets that have suffered fire damage.
It is through the use of technology that Notre Dame is being painstakingly rebuilt. Specialist consultant Art Graphique & Patrimoine is the only organisation to have a digital scan of an essential part of the building and will work with historical monument contractor’s association GMH and US software firm Autodesk to restore it.
But to what extent can the latest technology prevent or limit the damage that fires can cause? And even if the benefits of adopting fire safety technology are clear, is there an appetite for it amongst building owners?
Need for a “golden thread”
On the pre-fire side, there are various companies offering products and services which could provide a solution to the first issue in mitigating the risk of a fire breaking out.
Sensor technology company Notion has developed sensors that can be stuck on the walls around various parts of your home, and if smoke or carbon monoxide is present, homeowners will be notified via a smartphone notification.
Another product, developed by OnSiteIQ, provides a risk assessment service that can be used during the construction process of a building to ensure the project is meeting standards and is ultimately as safe as it can be.
There is real scope for companies to help the sector make a difference regarding fire safety, given that one critical issue that has emerged out of Grenfell is that building owners can lack knowledge and understanding about the make-up of their assets.
This issue was raised in Dame Judith Hackitt’s review, Building Regulations and Fire Safety: Building a Safer Future, which was presented to the Housing Communities and Local Government in May 2018.
The report stated that there is “unanimous concern” surrounding a “lack of complete, accurate and maintained building information” that is being handed over to building owners. Therefore, owners may not know whether the original design of the building differs from the completed building, which means they do not “have the required up-to-date information to be able to easily and effectively manage building safety across its life cycle.”
Although Hackitt’s recommendations are for residential buildings, Avison Young health and safety director Anthony Taylor says this issue is also present across non-residential assets.
The absence of this accurate handover documentation could have serious consequences, says Taylor.
“At the moment, many documents may not be readily available, may be held in various repositories and can be inaccurate,” he says. “The risk here is that decisions could then be made on the basis of inaccurate or insufficient information.”
This is particularly concerning in terms of fire safety, he says. “If decisions are made on the basis of misinformation, or without the whole picture being apparent, the consequences of ill-informed decision-making could be very significant.
“For example, if a fire risk assessor reviews and relies on documents [such as drawings, fire safety planning and so on] that contain incorrect or inaccurate information, then the assumptions made by the fire risk assessor, based on bad information, could lead to very dangerous situations.”
Technology plays an important part in this, says Taylor. A central database is needed where key data can be stored, maintained and kept up to date, instead of being simply “layered” on top of existing data, which he says could lead to confusion or, at worst, error.
Digital twins and automated buildings
While the government is looking at whether to standardise a minimum level of data that parties involved in the design and construction should hand over to the building owner, proptech companies have gone one step further to develop technology that can create a digital “twin” of buildings.
For example, LIDAR (light, detection and ranging) scanners have been developed that can scan an asset to record an exact digital replica of the building, including its plumbing and digital infrastructure. Metaprop is one investor which has seen the opportunities in this technology and has invested in LIDAR company Avvir, which “is at the forefront of this movement”, according to the VC’s co-founder and partner Zach Aarons.
He says while this kind of technology may not necessarily prevent fires from occurring, the benefits are twofold. It can help landlords locate which sprinkler valves should be turned on or off to extinguish the fire while preventing any unnecessary water damage, and the exact cause of the fire can be pinpointed with greater accuracy.
Aarons says demand for this technology has picked up substantially over the past 12 months, but this stems mostly from contractors using and installing it into new buildings during construction. Landlords, however, are less likely to invest in retrofitting existing stock with the latest fire safety technology.
“Demands to retrofit are always more challenging, unless it’s in the context of a massive renovation project,” says Aarons. “When you have a $300m project, you can bury all this stuff. The budget is there.”
But for landlords who have acquired an asset or who are looking at their existing stock, it is a different story. “When you’re buying an existing asset, and you’re not necessarily doing much […] there’s not as much wiggle room in your margins,” says Aarons.
Although there is less demand from landlords to adopt fire safety technologies, independent fire adviser Stephen Mackenzie, who was an expert witness in the inquiry into the Glasgow School of Art fire, says building owners are beginning to wake up to the importance of investing in fire safety technology. “Following major incidents such as Grenfell, we are seeing landlords look beyond traditional technologies to the fire sector for innovative solutions,” he says.
“We’re seeing new assessment and management software come on to the market, BIM (building information management software) is becoming more sophisticated, technology more advanced and automation more embedded and commonplace. I hope the mistakes of the past can be minimised if landlords adopt these fire safety interventions.”
The shortcomings of relying on tech
While there are many proptech companies offering fire safety services, products that offer the means to create digital twins of assets have been widely discussed as a means to transform the way that buildings operate and are maintained.
Speaking at the Future of Proptech event earlier this year, Claire Penny, global leader of Watson IoT for Buildings at IBM, said this technology marks a step towards buildings eventually running without human intervention.
However, Taylor voices his concerns over what could happen if landlords fall into the trap of relying too heavily on this technology and failing to scrutinise data for errors. “There will always remain the risk that data users simply fully accept, without question, the data delivered to them. This can lead to a risk of enabling tricky situations to develop,” he says.
To avoid this, Taylor emphasises the need for building managers to encompass many of the skills that data managers have and challenge the data.
Preventing a tragedy
As fire safety tech continues to develop, landlords lack the appetite to invest in installing these products across their existing stock.
And although technology may not yet be able to prevent fires from breaking out across buildings, it could go someway helping to limit the level of damage that could occur – and provide landlords with the tools to make their buildings as safe as possible.
The tech firms tackling fire safety
Autodesk
US software firm Autodesk provides software services for the construction, architecture and engineering sectors.
The company will work with specialist consultant Art Graphique & Patrimoine and historical contractor’s association GMH to help restore Notre Dame Cathedral through the use of BIM software.
AGP is the only organisation which has a digital scan of the essential part of the building. It is hoped a model can be developed by the end of the year to aid the restoration.
In April, Autodesk chief executive Andrew Anagnost tweeted: “Autodesk will be contributing money to the restoration fund and our expertise and software to the restoration efforts. May the beauty and majesty of Notre Dame grace the skyline of Paris for many generations to come.”
Avvir
Avvir is a New York-based software company which provides software that can create digital replicas of buildings under construction.
Avvir scans construction sites at regular intervals and compares the scans to the building plans. This means progress can be monitored, as well as any defects that might have occurred.
In July this year, the company raised $2.5m in seed funding in a round led by Khosla Ventures Partner Evan Moore as well as Metaprop and Localglobe.
Onsite IQ
The New York-based company provides 360-degree images of a construction site, enabling clients to monitor the condition of the site, progress and assess risks.
In November 2018, it raised $2m in a seed funding round that saw fintech investor Anthemis Group and Metaprop back the business.
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