Smarter Fire Engineering For Complex Buildings

Advanced fire and evacuation modelling to optimise design and improve building performance.

As buildings become more complex, traditional fire design methods don’t always provide the flexibility or insight needed to achieve the best outcomes.

At Kirk Roberts, we deliver advanced fire and evacuation modelling using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and Pathfinder, helping optimise building design while improving usability and enabling greater architectural freedom.

Unlike simplified approaches, FDS modelling simulates how fire and smoke develop and move throughout a space over time.

This allows our team to assess key safety factors such as visibility, temperature, and tenability, providing a much clearer picture of building performance.

“For projects where standard fire design methods fall short, advanced modelling gives us the ability to test real scenarios and optimise outcomes. That often means greater design flexibility and avoiding unnecessary cost, while still meeting the required safety standards.”

Herman Fong, Fire Team Leader Auckland.

For clients, this means:

Greater design flexibility, particularly for complex or non-standard buildings
The ability to optimise layouts and fire protection systems
Potential cost savings by avoiding overly conservative design assumptions and Prescribed design solutions
Performance-based fire design and modelling, undertaken and approved by our experienced fire engineers, provides equivalent confidence in meeting New Zealand Building Code requirements.

This approach is particularly valuable for projects such as:

Buildings with multi-level atrium spaces
Shopping centres and large retail environments
Auditoriums, theatres, and event centres
High-bay warehouses outside standard design limits
High-occupancy buildings with complex evacuation requirements

By combining FDS with Pathfinder evacuation modelling, we can also simulate how people move through a building during an emergency—supporting safer, more informed design decisions where simplified calculations are no longer sufficient.

As part of our performance-based fire engineering offering, these tools enable us to deliver smarter, more efficient solutions that balance safety, compliance, and design intent. Engaging fire engineering early can unlock opportunities to optimise your project, talk to our team to learn more.

Talk to our Fire Engineering team about how we can support your Fire Engineering requirements

Contact Our Team