John O’Neill BSc (Hons), MSc (Fire Safety Engineering), MSc (Data Science), AIFireE
Director / Founder
John has over 9 years’ experience working as a fire engineering consultant and has developed bespoke performance-based fire strategies for buildings across the UK, Ireland and Australia. He is comfortable developing strategies for projects across a range of sectors and always aims to strike a balance between ensuring that architectural aspirations are met while achieving a high level of fire safety.
While John is highly experienced in the application of baseline design guidance to ensure fire strategies meet prescriptive requirements, he is also experienced in the development of Computational Fluid Dynamics models using the most up to date industry software to facilitate performance based design approaches. He has used CFD to obtain approvals for designs across residential, office and warehouse schemes. He has also developed complex evacuation models for office and stadium projects.
With a separate master’s degree in data science, John’s research interests lean towards machine learning with a specific focus on application of supervised learning techniques to various fire related data sets.
Previous Employment - Astute Fire, Olsson Fire and Risk (Australia), Michael Slattery Associates (Ireland), Hoare Lea
Selected Career Episodes
Horsham Blue Light Centre
This Fire Station in West Sussex is also designed as a learning and development centre for the Fire Service. Of note was the design for the Live Fire training facility, the purpose of which was to provide supervised training for fire service personnel by replicating real world firefighting scenarios. Development of the fire strategy necessitated the consideration of repeated heating and cooling of “burn rooms” within the training building and development of an outline hazard analysis highlighting operational items that the end user should factor into the management plan.
JD Sports, DC2
The JD sports DC2 storage facility in Kingsway provided a unique challenge from a fire strategy perspective as it was undergoing alterations in response to the increased Health & Safety demands brought on by the Covid 19 Pandemic. The design which also included high racked storage and multiple open mezzanine floors required the development of a smoke modelling analysis to demonstrate the internal fit out could adequately accommodate means of escape.
Wework - Various
John has had the opportunity to work on a number of Wework office fit outs across London and Sydney Australia. Development of the strategies for these densely populated collaborative spaces often required creative thinking to develop bespoke fire strategies with a focus on means of escape. Consistent stakeholder engagement was required to ensure the Wework vision was maintained while also maintaining a high standard of life safety.
Other Notable Experience
Residential – 6 Merchant Square, Lewisham Gateway. Thornton Park, Clapham. Crown House Barking.
Commercial Office – Wework: Aldwych House and 12 Hammersmith Grove. Subsea 7 Sutton.
Transport – Stansted Airport. Lufthansa Lounge Heathrow.
Warehousing – Amazon IP9, Building 8 Lutterworth. Wayfair Project Mallow.
Education – Oxford University: Beecroft and Biochemistry Buildings. Ealing Schools; Springhallow and Castlebar, Middlesex University, ACI Theatre