In this In Case You Missed It episode of the I Hear Design podcast, we revisit an interiors+sources article exploring how performance-based fire modeling can help architects and designers resolve one of the most difficult tensions in adaptive reuse and renovation work: preserving design intent while meeting life safety and egress requirements.

The article explains how prescriptive code requirements can sometimes force costly or disruptive design changes, from added exit stairs and wider corridors to reconfigured layouts that compromise the original concept. Performance-based fire and egress modeling offers another path by using data, simulations, and expert analysis to demonstrate that a building can meet or exceed the intent of life safety codes—even when it does not follow every prescriptive requirement exactly.

Listeners will learn how tools such as computational fluid dynamics, fire dynamics simulation, and egress modeling help evaluate Available Safe Egress Time and Required Safe Egress Time, as well as why early collaboration with fire protection engineers and authorities having jurisdiction is critical. The episode also highlights where performance-based design can unlock flexibility for historic buildings, warehouse conversions, office-to-clinic transformations and other complex projects where code compliance and creative vision can appear to be at odds.

Tune in to hear how fire modeling can become more than a technical workaround; it can be a design enabler that supports safety, flexibility, and more successful project outcomes.