Thursday 12 June 2025
High-Rise Fire Safety
Speakers:
Shami Smith-Sandhu
Bruce Renwick
Viviana Magnarin
Venue: Society Building Fitzrovia, 55 Whitfield St, London W1T 4AH
Time; 7.45 - 10.15am
With the 8th anniversary of Grenfell approaching, we reflect on how far we have come in making high-rise residential buildings safer. Although the government has introduced a series of regulatory reforms, questions remain around both their implementation and effectiveness.
Join us at our next ACN Breakfast event as we examine the evolving guidance, legislative response and implications for designers and developers working in high-rise residential construction. Our speakers, Bruce Renwick (Principal Fire Protection Engineer at Cundall) and Shami Smith-Sandhu (Director at Semper), will draw on their knowledge and experience across projects in the UK and overseas to discuss key fire safety considerations, including:
• The government’s findings following Grenfell
• New regulations brought in and those still pending
• Implications for designers delivering high-rise housing
• Whether current changes are sufficient to prevent future tragedies
Speakers
Shami Smith-Sandhu
Semper, Director
Shami is an award-winning, versatile, fire engineering consultant based in London with over 500 projects in his portfolio throughout the EMEA region. He practises in a diverse range of sectors including commercial, residential, educational, hopsitality, healthcare, retail and transport. He is proficient in undertaking complex fire engineering studies. Shami was awarded the Society of Fire Protection Engineers UK “Fire Engineering Strategy of the Year” in 2023 for his work on the Victoria Square project in Woking. With a background in Architectural Engineering and Sustainable Design, Shami’s knowledge base ensures holistic building design is at the forefront of all of his work. He has a keen interest in the built environment and has an instinctive eagerness to meet and work with dynamic, innovative and like-minded individuals.
Bruce Renwick
Cundall, Principal Fire Protection Engineer
Bruce Renwick is lead specialist fire suppression engineer at Cundall for hyperscale date centres, lifestyle, residential and commercial sectors within the UK, Europe and Asia. He is a mechanical engineer with 19 years working in consultancy and extensive experience in fire protection systems design and fire strategy. Bruce has worked both offsite and onsite, on a wide range of projects including high rise residential buildings, data centres, laboratories, workplaces and oil and gas facilities. As part of the broader Cundall fire engineering team, he is working towards the decarbonisation of fire suppression systems while maintaining optimum performance for both life safety and property protection.
Viviana Magnarin
HTA Design
A RIBA Chartered Architect with over 16 years of UK experience working on Medium and High Volume Residential and Mixed Use schemes for major UK Developers, Housing Associations and Contractors (Galliard Homes, Berkeley Homes, Barratt Homes, Galliford Try, Morgan Sindall, Kier, Newlon HT), Viviana has the expertise to lead large teams in both the public and private sectors. Viviana has a strong interest in Fire Safety, Retrofit and Modern Methods of Construction, in particular in the design and delivery of high-density residential schemes using volumetric modular construction and she has gained extensive experience working in close collaboration with Berkeley's Modular department. Viviana has also worked with the FLUID and RIBA Student Mentoring programmes, which aim to provide opportunities for architectural students to meet with practitioners committed to the future of the profession.