Authors : Baabereyir Bertino Richard; Ohene Michael; Tetteh Otchie Philip

Volume/Issue : Volume 9 - 2024, Issue 8 - August

Google Scholar : https://shorturl.at/iHl5J

Scribd : https://shorturl.at/asrUo

DOI : https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/IJISRT24AUG511

Abstract : Recently, a day passed without fire outbreaks in Ghana generated many discussions on rumours relating to politics, sabotage or religious differences among others, yet little is done to reduce this high incidence of fire outbreaks. One quandary identified is that, there is no uniform standard for building safety design, and ambiguous acceptance criteria used by building designers enthralling them to design what they think it is vital to them, hence, ignoring regulations and standards as their benchmark. The study adopted a quantitative descriptive approach, and questionnaires items tested by principal architects and chief service engineers, totalling one –hundred and thirty-four (134) of which 95 for architects and 39 for services engineers with good standing firms, belonging to registered professional bodies across the country. The sampling frame was deduced from the list of currently Registered Architectural Consultancy Firms with good standing in the building construction industries in Ghana and the list of Service Engineering firms in Ghana Association of Incorporated Engineers in two cities namely, Kumasi, and Accra in Ghana, due to its highly concentrated architectural and service engineering firms. Kish (1965) formula was used for calculating minimum sample size for the study. SPSS Version 21.6 package was used to produce the statistical analysis tools for the study. Descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentages were used to summarize the data gathered from respondents. However, the influential critical factors identified from the literature, regulations, and international standards codes are grouped under ten components as follows;- 1) Holistic Design variables, 2) Relevance design considerations variables, 3) Fire safety objectives variables, 4) Performance based code variables, 5) Fire detection, alarm systems and suppression systems variables, 6) Active Fire Protection variables, 7) Building Fire Safety consideration variables, 8) Fire Emergency Power Design variables, 9) Built-in’ Fire Protection or ‘Passive Fire Protection’ (PFP) variables, and 10) Fire risk activities variables. The results of this study would enable fire safety designers in Ghana to be successful in its quest to incorporate these identified influential factors in their designs. The study seeks to find out critical influential factors related to design of building fire safety that contribute to BSI’s in Ghana: purposeful of given initial screening evaluation for fire safety and health performance throughout the entire design process.

Keywords : Critical Factors, Influence, Choice, Fire Safety Systems, Design, Public Buildings, Ghana

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