Performance-based Fire Engineering Design: 

The new and complex methods of building construction have made it impractical to yield fire-safe buildings under the old prescriptive rules, because these were too generically defined and do not cater for the many innovative architectural design scenarios found in modern building complexes of today.   

By contrast, performance-based (or rational design) codes describe requirements for fire safety through a set of flexibly defined performance objectives and functional requirements, for which compliance is determined by employing engineering standards, practices, tools and methodologies, thereby providing a flexible and technically non-prescriptive framework for building design and construction – thus enhancing the scope for innovation.  The fire engineering approach takes into account the full integration of all building services and designs and will provide a more innovative and economical solution for the specific development than more prescriptive approaches to fire safety.