Floor space factor for a Mosque prayer hall

[kurnal]

Do we have any members who have experience of worshipping in or visiting a mosque at the busiest times- religious festivals, funerals etc, and knowledge of how a Prayer Hall may be used?

I have just carried out an assessment of a mosque and in the upper prayer hall there are 532 prayer mat spaces marked out on the floor. The Hall is 840 sq metres gross floor area and the means of escape has capacity for 800 persons discounting the widest storey exit.

Guidance would have me use 0.5sqm per person giving a huge shortfall in means of escape. The RP  has never counted but he thinks he has more persons than prayer mats but is adamant that 0.5sqm/person is grossly over the top, suggesting I use 1sqm per person. I have seen news footage taken at Ramadam on the TV ( but not in a prayer hall ) and from that I think 0.5 is probably right.  Please can anybody advise me?

[messy]

I can't help you with the FS technicalities Kurnal as my experience with such buidings has been gained whilst operational and while dealing with alleged fire risks, PAI etc from the fire station.

However, one word of advice (which may not be apparent to non muslims)  is that 532 worshippers equals 1064 shoes. These are often left in a disorganised manner by the entrance of the hall. (not necessarily the final exit from the building)

If the shoe storage is not managed adequately, they can cause a serious trip hazard. Also in the event of an evacuation, there may also be a considerable delay/congestion whilst persons sort & retrieve their shoes prior to exiting.

[John Webb]

Both the ADB and the Guide to large places of assembly cite 0.5sq.m. per person. What area does each prayer mat actually cover, and would they allow any more on the floor where it isn't marked out? ie if the prayer mat area is between 0.5 and 1sq. m use that as the occupancy factor?

Messy - that bit about the shoes is something I would not have thought of in a month of Sundays!

[jokar]

Or any other day when they pray.

[kurnal]

The prayer mats are marked out on the fitted carpets and equate roughly to 1 sq m in the places they are provided. If the room were only used for formal prayer it would not be a problem but I understand that worship is not so formal in the event of festivals and funerals.
Thanks messy for the tip over the shoes, it will be an issue because I did only count shoe racks for about 100 pairs, cant imagine what an evacuation would be like.

[slubberdegullion]

I realise that the tricky point for you is working out the number of people likely to be in the building, but once you have done this, rather than using ADB guidance here I would be inclined to adopt the principles of DD9999.  The 5mm per person in ADB is based on standard (i.e. lowish) ceiling height and a certain level of fire loading that I would guess is unlikely to be present (apart from the pile of shoes in the doorway!).

Can't help you with numbers.  Go with what the RP says.  Better still, do a "DP" inspection and count.

I'm a mathematician and we have a quick way of counting large numbers of people.  You simply count the legs and divide by two.

Stu

[devon4ever]

Kurnal,

Iv'e had some experience of places of assembly and invariably go for 1msq per person despite ADB guidance etc, it is after all a risk assessment as percieved by the assessor. You have already identified the available exits, (discounting the largest), so this must be the most decisive factor in calculating the Occupancy. Larger numbers required for special one-off events should be risk managed with provision for worshippers to be catered externally to the mosque, (loud speakers etc) and contained within a management policy for the premises, (and consider stewards or responsible persons allocated before-hand, to assist any evacuation).

In essence the problem of mass panic during evacuation that you may experience in say a Disco for example is less likely in a mosque where the occupants are attending a religous event and are likely to be familiar with the building - 800 persons within 840msq, (and available exits), would sit comfortable with me. Never forget human nature though, whereby people tend to exit a building the same way they came in!

Just as matter of interest is there dual-language fire action notices for worshippers who do not have English as a first language?

Notice that I purposefully avoided any reference to footwear in my response!

[kurnal]

Hi Devon4ever
you are absolutely right on the notices- these are clearly needed- but I think there also some other related  issues that are difficult to address. Its been an interesting job though.
The mosque is run by a committee and the community have a very strong hierarchy in place and hold their most elderly members in the highest esteem. What they say goes. (Our culture could learn from this). The trouble is Fire Safety management  doesn't seem to be high on the agenda so despite the younger members trying to lead and modernise they may have insufficient authority.

For example the fire alarm was giving unwanted signals so rather than having it repaired, due to the risk of it disrupting  worship it was disconnected.

The worship is led by the Imam who is the most authoritative person and in our case he has no command of the  English language at all. I really dont know if other members of the committee would have the authority to interrupt the worship in an emergency. And neither does the appointed Responsible Person.

The appointed RP is well qualified and experienced in management- he has all the credentials to carry out the role and has been appointed for this reason- but I get the impression that he may lack the authority at committee level to achieve what needs to be done. We could argue about the role of the RP all night and whether a person without sufficient authority is really an RP or is just a source of competent advice. But thats another issue.

The only way to test the emergency plan is to carry out an evacuation exercise and that hurdle is yet to be overcome. I note your comments about the risk of panic but many large scale  disasters  have occurred in places of religious education or worship, both in the West and in the East, whether a convent in America or the streets of Mecca. Finally I think that the need to collect shoes will determine the exit people choose and is very likely to cause huge problems on evacuation. I cannot recommend that racks be used and dispersed throughout each exit route because this is a mixed use building and some routes are only accessible in an emergency- on mag locks.