Dr. Marianne Foley

Marianne Foley

Dr Marianne Foley is a Fire Safety Engineer and Senior Associate with Arup in Sydney.She has been practising as a professional fire safety engineer in Australia, specialising in performance based design, since 1997.She has a PhD in Fire Safety from the University of Edinburgh, where she studied with Dougal Drysdale.She has a wide range of project experience including the Water Cube -the Beijing National Aquatic Centre for the 2008 Games, several Sydney Olympic projects including the Sydney SuperDome (now Acer Arena) and the Sydney International Aquatic Centre Olympic expansion, venue improvement works on the Sydney Opera House, and the fire safety upgrade of the heritage listed David Jones City Stores.

Fire engineer, Marianne Foley.

The Award is given for Arup's visionary National Aquatic Centre, known as the Water Cube, and the setting for so many phenomenal swimming events at last summer's Olympic Games.

"This solution for Stockland represents a breakthrough for fire safety design in Australia," says Dr Marianne Foley, Principal with Arup and leader of the fire team on the project. "It allowed the architectural vision and environmental targets for the project to be realised without compromise. The existing building has been rejuvenated, creating a vibrant working environment that is also sustainable and safe."

Dr Foley won two awards for her innovative use of horizontal fire curtains at the NSW National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) awards. She was awarded the Stockland Award for Innovation in Design and the Kell & Rigby/Master Builder's Association Award for Innovation.

Marianne Foley

Marianne Foley
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Marianne Foley

Marianne Foley © ArupFire Safety Specialist
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Marianne is an Associate with Arup Fire and has a strong committment to innovative performance based fire safety design.She has worked on a wide range of significant projects including many Olympic venues, adaptive reuse of heritage buildings, retail, entertainment (including the Sydney Opera House), and infrastructure projects.

According to fire engineer Dr Marianne Foley, "Timing was an enormous challenge but Arup's one stop shop (multidisciplinary) approach enabled us to cover all of the engineering and specialist design roles throughout both the concept and scheme design stages."

"The end date was obviously non-negotiable, yet all of us faced unanticipated issues arising from the unique nature of the project. We had to find solutions to multiple unprecedented challenges without taking any additional time."

Dr Foley was in the thick of all this, as she was dealing with the unconventional ETFE cladding while developing an overall fire plan that convinced the local authorities to accept a fire design outside Beijing's conventional building code.