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Simon Ham

Simon Ham is an architect who developed his initial specialist knowledge of fire safety design whilst employed by Nottinghamshire County Council, as "fire architect", following the Fairfield Elderly Persons Home fire in which 19 people died.

He was appointed to the Building Regulations Advisory Committee, the statutory committee that advises the Secretary of State on building regulation matters between July 1983 and December 1995.

He was a BRE/Fire Research Station Visitor from 1988 - 1993 responsible for advising the Chief Executive on the quality and application of the work of the Establishment.

He has represented the RIBA on a number of British Standard Committees concerned with fire design and testing. He resigned from the RIBA at the start of the new millennium.

He is a director of Fire Safety Engineering Consultants Limited and has advised on a significant number of major building projects mostly but not exclusively within the UK.

Review by Will Marshall, Principal Engineer, Jeremy Gardner Associates

Legislation Maze: Fire is one of a series of books covering relevant legislation. This book sets out to explain the legislation in relation to fire for building projects.  Generally the book achieves this aim.  The book doesn’t describe recommendations of this legislation, but does advise where to look to find this information.

The author originally trained as an architect and his knowledge of the process is therefore good.  The book is broadly split into two main sections.  The first describes the legislative framework and the second describes how this legislation is applied to each of the work stages of a project.

The second sections starts with a table summarising the considerations relating to fire strategy suggested at each of the RIBA stages.  The remainder of this section then describes each of these suggestions in more detail.

This book deals exclusively with the legislation in England and Wales and, although the broad principles apply, the book is therefore best suited to projects within England and Wales.