Site tour to the Starbucks Reserve Roastery

The site tour to Starbucks Reserve Roastery along Meguro River was held on 23th of May. About 20 people attended this tour although it was raining.
This building is a complex of roastery and caffe and a flag ship shop of each country.
This type of building was built first in Japan. Caffe space is surrounding the void space where roastery, reservoir of roasted beans, automatic conveyor pipes of coffee beans are installed. Performance based design for safe evacuation was used to realize continuous void spaces without fire compartment. As a result, the design concept as a complex of roastery and caffe is realized. This is a good example of harmonization of the design concept and fire safety design.

Participants

Inaugural greeting from the new president

Dr. Ai Sekizawa, Professor at Tokyo University of Science
President of JAFPE (The Japan Association of Fire Protection Engineers) and SFPE Japan Chapter
　　
On March 1, 2023, I was elected as the President of the Board of Directors of the Japan Association of Fire Protection Engineers (JAFPE), an NPO in Japan. At the same time, I am also responsible for the Japan Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE). Learning from the excellent leadership and management skills of my predecessor, Mr. Kiyoshi Fukui, and with the cooperation of all members, I intend to make efforts for the further development of both organizations.

JAFPE celebrated its 20th anniversary this year since its establishment in June 2003. During this time, the number of members has steadily increased from less than 40 when it was first established to 157 today. We have organized various seminars and facility tours, and exchange meetings with the SFPE Asia and Oceania chapters. Also, we have been running working group activities to meet the requests of our members, such as Profession Competency of Fire Protection Engineers, Elevator Evacuation, Fire Safety for Elderly Care Facilities and Childcare Facilities, and others.

Furthermore, when the fire safety regulations of the Building Standards Act were revised, we submitted public comments as a social dissemination from a professional group of fire protection engineers in Japan.

I would like to inherit the activities and achievements so far and work towards further development in the future.

March 31, 2023

3rd SFPE Asia & SFPE Oceania Collaborative Meeting

On February 10th 3rd SFPE Asia & SFPE Oceania Collaborative Meeting was held as a web conference. Summery of this conference is as follows.
・Reports on current situation in each chapter
・Presentation of Japan chapter
“Wooden buildings based on the current fire protection technology in Japan”
Introducing two timber structure buildings that Japan chapter had site tours last year with buck ground technology and legal approval process.
・Presentation of Australian chapter
“Fire safety of timber building-A review of existing knowledge and practice in Australia”
Introducing several examples of timber buildings in Australia with buck ground technology and legal approval process.
You can see the video of conference from following link.
https://youtu.be/N7AcENxC7_o

The 2022 General Assembly was held online on February 7th. Please see here for details.

The 2022 General Assembly of the Japan Association of Fire Protection Engineers was held online on February 7th. The meeting was approved by a majority of all members, including proxies.
The general meeting agenda for FY2022 activity policy and settlement of accounts, and FY2023 activity schedule and budget were explained and discussed, and both proposals were approved.
At the end of the general meeting, a certificate awarding ceremony was held for Mitsuho Enomoto, who was certified as a JAFPE fire prevention engineer last year.
Following the general meeting, we introduced the working group activities that were highly evaluated when receiving the achievement award of Japan Association for Fire Science and Engineering. We reported on the activities of the four working groups: fire safety at welfare facilities for the elderly, fire safety of capsule hotels, evacuation using elevators, and ideal fire prevention engineers, and received their opinions.
Following the general meeting, a case study on “Extension of an Existing Office Building” was introduced. The case study was presented at the SFPE-sponsored international conference held online in March 2022.