Facade engineers highlight fire safety role

Saverio Pasetto, chair of the Society of Facade Engineering (SFE), offers an update following its AGM

CIBSE Journal June 2019 Saverio Pasetto

Saverio Pasetto

The SFE 2019 AGM took place on 2 April in London, looking back over a year of intense society activities, with presentations from committee chairs, and the election of the new 2019-20 board.

It was an opportunity to draw attention to the need for the façade engineering discipline to be recognised outside the façade network in order to be a more established specialism in the construction industry. This has been particularly important in the past 18 months with the Grenfell Tower fire bringing ‘façade’ and ‘cladding’ into the spotlight.

To this effect, the society engaged with other disciplines, industry bodies, such as CIBSE, RIBA, IstructE and CWCT, and government. The society also set up a specific SFE fire committee to respond to the various calls for evidence and activities related to the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, to provide guidance for SFE members on the emerging issues and resulting regulatory changes. It is also part of the ongoing work on professional competence and encourages all members to contribute to this work, either through the society and its committees, or independently.

With nearly 1,700 international members at various grades, the SFE also wants to encourage students and affiliates to progress to full, corporate membership and benefit from free access to its technical evenings and document downloads.

Due to interest in the UK’s Manchester area and from Italy, the SFE Manchester region and SFE Italy have been launched.

Details of the new SFE Board can be found at: www.cibse.org/sfe

Thanks were given to David Watabiki (regions) and Graham Fairley (secretary) for their invaluable contribution, as they step down from their roles.