Zari Consulting Group was retained by Novartis Pharmaceuticals to provide building code, fire alarm, automatic fire sprinkler, and smoke control consulting services for their Northern California laboratory and office facility. Novartis voluntarily requested these analyses to be performed to ensure their facility adheres to the most current building code requirements. The facility is over 150,000 square feet per floor and consists of laboratory (L) occupancies mixed with office (B) occupancies. There are also numerous areas dedicated for storage (S2).

Zari Consulting Group’s building code consulting services included a site wide egress analysis for the entire facility, determining the adequacy of corridor and passive fire / smoke boundaries, determining required locations for fire dampers and fire/smoke dampers, and calculating the sizes for each occupancy classification.

Our automatic fire sprinkler services included a review of the system for conformance with NFPA 13, a site survey of the existing piping, waterflow switches, control valves, and tamper switches.

For fire alarm consulting, Zari Consulting Group was asked to design a new, state of the art fire alarm system that has the capability to adequately cover this massive facility. The fire alarm system provided the following features:

• Complete visual and audible notification throughout the facility
• Control of fire/smoke dampers
• Control and monitoring of HVAC systems and exhaust fans
• Monitoring of the existing smoke control system
• Monitoring of the automatic fire sprinkler system
• Monitoring of the numerous clean agent rooms
• Monitoring of the pre-action fire sprinkler system
• Monitoring of the roof status via flame detection devices
• Release of door holders upon smoke detector activation

As one of the world’s most prestigious companies, Novartis is dedicated to maintaining a safe work environment for its employees and guests, and their continual auditing and review of facility conditions is proof of the value they hold for building occupants.