I have just seen an office block that is in the process of being renovated to residential flats.
The flats are within lobbied corridors, with maximum travel distance to the stairway of approx 11m. The corridor is subdivided with a fire door, so that there is a maxium of about 7.5m to the first door (and all the flats are within this part) and then an additional small corridor (approx 3.5m) leading to the (single) stairway. The AOV (natural smoke shaft) is located within this second corridor.
The question is, does it make sense to have the smoke shaft in the second-half of the corridor - so there is no smoke control in the residential part of the corridor, and will only vent smoke if the mid-corridor door is open?
Would it make more sense to remove the mid-corridor door so that the smoke has means of dispersing - but would mean that the travel distance now is 11m to a protected escape route?
Thanks