Innovativer Brandschutz für große Einkaufszentren

Innovative fire safety of large shopping centres

In Germany shopping malls have changed in recent times. This is the result of the fact that the operators of shopping malls are trying to drawing more and more people into their buildings and thus making them more attractive, leading to a multifunctional usage consisting of shopping, events and gastronomy. The main interest is to understand shopping as a part of leisure and make shopping an event. The multifunctional usage in most cases is not covered by the respective building law for special buildings, the Verkaufsstättenverordnung.
The article shows and summarizes the key points of the change of shopping centres and explains the resulting difficulties with building regulations with the regard to fire safety. In addition future changes of the building regulations affecting the flexible use of shopping centres are discussed. Furthermore main elements of the fire safety concepts of two large shopping centre projects, the "Milaneo" in Stuttgart and "The Squaire" in Frankfurt, are explained.