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History of the Kitchen

January 17, 2025
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Facilities Services

Kitchen Exhaust

• In ancient times, kitchens were often located outside the main living quarters of a home. They were typically small, with an open hearth for cooking and a few basic utensils.

• During the Middle Ages, kitchens began to be built inside castles and manor houses. These kitchens were much larger and more complex than earlier versions, with multiple hearths, ovens, and cooking utensils.

• During the Renaissance, kitchens continued to become more elaborate, with the development of specialized cooking tools and the introduction of new cooking techniques. The kitchen also became a central gathering place for the household.

• With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, kitchens began to incorporate new technologies, such as gas stoves and refrigeration. As more people moved into cities, smaller kitchens became the norm.

• In the 20th century, the design and functionality of kitchens continued to evolve. The introduction of electricity and new materials, such as stainless steel, allowed for more efficient and hygienic kitchens. Open-plan kitchens, where the kitchen is integrated with the living and dining areas, also became popular.

Ventilation for Commercial Cooking Operations

January 17, 2025
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Kitchen cooking ranks high as the causes of fire hazard in the built environment. ASHRAE 154 provides design criteria for the performance of commercial cooking ventilation systems.  Education communities have hundreds of food preparation enterprises in school districts, residence halls, hospitals and athletic venues. It is not intended to circumvent any safety, health or environmental requirement; however we find a fair amount of drama regarding the competing requirements of fire safety and sustainability among subject matter experts.  The stabilized version is dated 2022.

“Dutch Kitchen” / Artist Unknown

A noteworthy title in the ASHRAE standards catalog is ASHRAE 154 Ventilation for Commercial Cooking Operations.  Food preparation enterprises in school districts, residence halls, hospitals and athletic venues and central features in education communities.   Access to the 2022 edition is linked below:

FREE ACCESS ASHRAE 154

The purpose of ASHRAE 154 is to provide design criteria for the performance of commercial cooking ventilation systems.  It covers kitchen hoods, exhaust systems and replacement air systems,   It is not intended to circumvent any safety, health or environmental requirement; however we find a fair amount of drama between partisans of air movement controls and energy conservation interests.  Fire safety and the sustainability advocates are well funded voices.

There are no open consultations at the moment; but you may track release of any at the link below:

Public Review Draft Standards / Online Comment Database

Titles in the ASHRAE catalog move swiftly; many of them consultations lasting less than 45 days.

Interior environmental air safety is a concern that cuts across many professional disciplines.  Accordingly, we maintain this title on the standing agendas of several colloquia — Mechanical Engineering, Energy and Housing.  Starting 2022 we will break out this the subject of a separate, dedicated colloquium   See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

Issue: [14-92]

Category: Mechanical, Electrical, Energy, Facility Asset Management

Colleagues:  David Conrad, Richard Robben, Larry Spielvogel

Kitchen cooking ranks high as the causes of fire hazard in the built environment. ASHRAE 154 provides design criteria for the performance of commercial cooking ventilation systems.  Education communities have hundreds of food preparation enterprises in school districts, residence halls, hospitals and athletic venues. It is not intended to circumvent any safety, health or environmental requirement; however we find a fair amount of drama regarding the competing requirements of fire safety and sustainability among subject matter experts.  The stabilized version is dated 2022.

“Tea, Earl Grey, Hot”

January 16, 2025
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The command issued by the character Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the television series “Star Trek: The Next Generation” finds its way into the archive of photographs of Nobel Laureates consorting with politicians at the University of Michigan and elsewhere.

Attendees of the Theoretical Physics Colloquium at the University of Michigan in 1929.

American Institute of Physics Archive

 

Ex Libris Universum

…”There’s not good math explaining forget the physics of it.  Math explaining the behavior of complex systems yeah and that to me is both exciting and paralyzing like we’re at very early days of understanding you know how complicated and fascinating things emerge from simple rules…” — Peter Woit [1:16:00]

Coffee & Tea Standards


Since 1936 the Brown Jug has been the ancestral trough of generations of University of Michigan students and faculty — notably. Donald Glaser (inventor of the bubble chamber) and Samuel C. C. Ting (Nobel Laureate) whose offices at Randall Laboratory were a 2-minute walk around the corner from The Brown Jug.  As the lore goes, the inspiration happened whilst watching beer bubbles one ordinary TGIF Friday.

The Brown Jug is named after the Michigan vs Minnesota football trophy, which is the oldest in college football.

Code ignis MMXXVII

January 16, 2025
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Winter Holiday Fire Facts

NFPA Fire Protection Systems Catalog (Lorem ipsum)

Crosswalk: NFPA Fire Code and ICC International Fire Code

“Prometheus creating Man in the presence of Athena” 1802 Jean-Simon Berthélemy

Free public access to the current edition of NFPA’s parent fire safety document is linked below:

2024 NFPA 1 Fire Code 

We attend to occupancy-specific chapters (listed below) because of their significant presence in education communities.

Chapter 25: Grandstands and Bleachers, Folding and Telescopic Seating, Tents and Membrane Structures (N.B)

Chapter 26: Laboratories Using Chemicals

Chapter 29: Parking Garages

Chapter 32: Motion Picture and Television Production Studio Soundstages and Approved Production Facilities

Chapter 35: Animal Housing Facilities

Chapter 36: Telecommunication Facilities and Information Technology Equipment

Chapter 50: Commercial Cooking

Chapter 52: Energy Storage Systems

Some of the chapters reference other titles such as NFPA 45 Standard of Fire Protection for Laboratories Using Chemicals which support risk management in other occupancies.  It is noteworthy that in the 2021 revision cycle of NFPA 1 there are relatively few new concepts regarding education facilities that have been proposed.   You get a sampling of the ideas in play from the transcript of public input for the 2024 edition.

Public Input Report (525 Pages)

Use search terms such as school, college, university, dormitory(ies), laboratory(ies), classroom, children, day-care, student, et cetera for a sense of the ideas in play.

Results of the 2027 First Draft meetings have not yet been posted as on November 9, 2024.  A preview of the ideas in play can be found in the meeting minutes of the several committees linked below:

Fire Code (FCC-AAC): First Draft Meeting Minutes

First Draft: Fundamentals of the Fire Code (FCC-FUN)

Special Equipment, Processes and Hazardous Materials (FCC-HAZ)

Building Systems and Special Occupancies (FCC-OCP)

Public comment on the First Draft of the 2027 revision will be received until April 24, 2025.

We include NFPA 1 on our periodic fire safety colloquia — identified by the mnemonic Prometheus — and march along peak interests.

Campus fire safety is domain relatively well-covered by other organizations such as the Center for Campus Fire Safety and HigherEd Safety so we place NFPA 1 in the middle of our priority tier.   We are more interested in the harmonization of NFPA 1 with a competitor title International Fire Code; published by the International Code Council; to wit:

International Fire Code:   The purpose of this code is to establish the minimum requirements consistent with nationally recognized good practice for proving a reasonable level of life safety and property protection from the hazards of fire, explosion or dangerous conditions in new and existing buildings, structures or premises and to provide a reasonable level of safety to fire fighters and emergency responders during emergency operations

Fire Code: The scope includes, but is not limited to, the following: (1) Inspection of permanent and temporary buildings, processes, equipment, systems, and other fire and related life safety situations (2) Investigation of fires, explosions, hazardous materials incidents, and other related emergency incidents (3) Review of construction plans, drawings, and specifications for life safety systems, fire protection systems, access, water supplies, processes, hazardous materials, and other fire and life safety issues (4) Fire and life safety education of fire brigades, employees, responsible parties, and the general public (5) Existing occupancies and conditions, the design and construction of new buildings, remodeling of existing buildings, and additions to existing buildings (6) Design, installation, alteration, modification, construction, maintenance, repairs, servicing, and testing of fire protection systems and equipment (7) Installation, use, storage, and handling of medical gas systems (8) Access requirements for fire department operations (9) Hazards from outside fires in vegetation, trash, building debris, and other materials (10) Regulation and control of special events including, but not limited to, assemblage of people, exhibits, trade shows, amusement parks, haunted houses, outdoor events, and other similar special temporary and permanent occupancies (11) Interior finish, decorations, furnishings, and other combustibles that contribute to fire spread, fire load, and smoke production (12) Storage, use, processing, handling, and on-site transportation of flammable and combustible gases, liquids, and solids (13) Storage, use, processing, handling, and on-site transportation of hazardous materials (14) Control of emergency operations and scenes (15) Conditions affecting fire fighter safety (16) Arrangement, design, construction, and alteration of new and existing means of egress

Note that both ICC and NFPA parent fire safety documents are developed on coincident 3-year cycles.

 

Issue: [18-90]

Category: Fire Safety, Public Safety

Colleagues: Mike Anthony,  Joshua W. Elvove, Joe DeRosier, Casey Grant

Facility Management

January 15, 2025
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“The work of the eyes is done.
Go now and do the heart-work
on the images imprisoned within you.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1929 “Letters to a Young Architect”)

“Architect’s Dream” 1840 | Thomas Cole

The internationalization of the education industry continues at a brisk pace and so do the enterprises that support the primary business of learning, teaching and discovering.   Educational campuses, and related university-affiliated medical research and healthcare enterprises, represent one of the largest assets owned and operated by any state.

In a state such as the State of Michigan, for example, with a gross state product of about $500 billion, the value of public real property assets may be on the order of $50 billion*.  If taking 2 percent off the cost owning, operating and maintaining those assets every year resulted in a savings of $1 billion million every year simply because conformance to a standard that reduced destructive competition and redundancy is meaningful, then those agencies should pay attention.   Alas, they do not, or not yet; a condition we describe in our ABOUT.

There is no reason to believe that internationalization of campus facility management practices cannot be as transformative to an industry as the ISO 9000 catalog of management standards were to, say, to the Michigan automobile industry 50-odd years ago.   In other words, the Michigan experience with globalization of its core industry was hastened precisely because of the conformance template that the ISO-9000 suite provided.

ISO/TC 267 Project Kickoff Meeting | Berlin 2012 | The University of Michigan was the first US university to participate in the launch of this standard and acted as a technical liaison for IFMA.

The business plan for this committee is linked below and provides a high level overview of committee goals and organization:

ISO/TC 267 / Facility Management / EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

CLICK ON IMAGE

The landing page for this committee is linked below:

ISO/TC 267

The list of work ISO/TC 267 titles are listed in the link below.  Four are published standards and two are currently under development:

ISO 267 Facility Management Standards Catalogue

Note that ISO 41018 — Facility management — Development of a facility management policy — was published in July 2022.

At the moment ANSI has identified the US TAG Administrator as the International Facility Management Association however direct management of the US delegation is also being supported by ANSI staff.   You are encouraged to communicate directly with ANSI’s US Technical Advisory Group leader to TC 267.   Contacts at ANSI are Jason Knopes <[email protected]> and Rachel Hawthorne [email protected]

We place ISO/TC 267 consensus products on each of our monthly Management, and International Standards.  See our CALENDAR for next online meetings, open to everyone.

Issue: [11-33]

Category: Facility Asset Management, International

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Jack Janveja, Richard Robben


LEARN MORE:

ISO Focus January 2015 Anthony-Robben – Education Enterprise pp 33-37

ARCHIVE / ISO 267 FACILITY MANAGEMENT

 

Electropedia: The World’s Online Electrotechnical Vocabulary

January 15, 2025
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Public Consultations

Public consultation on joint ISO standard 80000 that defines quantities and units for space, time, thermodynamics, light, radiation and even the characteristic numbers for each of the foregoing closes October 11th.

“City at night” 1958 | Harald Rudyard Engman

Electropedia is produced by the world’s peak electrotechnical standardization organization that oversees 214 technical committees that provide a neutral and independent platform where agreement can be found on electrotechnical solutions with global relevance and reach.  The IEC operates close-coupled with the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC)

IEC 60050 International Electrotechnical Vocabulary (IEV) – Part 601: Generation, transmission and distribution of electricity | April 16

International Electrotechnical Commission | CDV Consultations

 

Elettrotecnico Lingua Franca

 

If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration. - Nikola Tesla

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