The paper summarises the results of an investigation intended to develop guidelines for implementing fire safety measures in historic buildings converted to university use, and which can be utilised in making design decisions and assessing project feasibility. In particular, the paper focuses on the relationships between a building's historical type, the applicable regulatory and performance requirements, and the design solutions that can be adopted in a given situation. The examples of such solutions provided in the paper, which regard functional requirements as well as those for fire safety, accessibility and utilities systems, are drawn from an analysis of recent case studies of historic building conversion to university use, evaluating the design approaches which were adopted and possible alternatives. In addition, the paper presents a series of parametric appraisals of the typical costs incurred in construction and utilities installation, together with a discussion of the development and application of a risk analysis method which can be used to evaluate the overall performance of specific design solutions or construction situations.
