Kevin Suen

Kevin Suen

Senior Fire Safety Engineer
Year joined DMA: 2023

Kevin is a senior fire safety engineer at DMA Engineers. He started his career as a fire engineer since 2013. With more than 10 years of experience, he exposed to a broad range of challenging projects including detention centres, health care facilities, retail stores, industrial warehouses, commercial buildings, residential buildings, claddings related buildings, and so on.

Equipped with a deep understanding of fire engineering first principles via postgraduate degree & research as well as the operations of fire safety system, this enables Kevin to communicate with clients and design teams effectively. To achieve the clients’ objectives, Kevin is able to develop creative building design solutions using fire engineering first principles and manage to drive the solutions to meet the relevant performance requirements.

The report mentioned here is a great example of a well thought out and well presented document that allowed QFES to easily make our way through. The justifications for the proposals were clear and well substantiated. The diagrams showing retention and removal were succinct and in no way superfluous. The reports structure was logical making it easily comprehensible. A great submission package overall – Darren Herden, Building Approvals Officer. 

My career highlights:

  • Yatala Warehouse Distribution Centres | Kevin was the lead and main contact for the fire engineering in a number of Yatala Warehouse jobs. The warehouse at 14 Dixon Street, Yatala was the first warehouse job where Kevin was involved in. Due to the client’s request, Kevin successfully assisted the client to alter the smoke hazard management strategy within the warehouse building from natural ventilation system to smoke exhaust system. Because of these great outcomes, Kevin was continuously referred to on multiple warehouse buildings.
  • Master Thesis Research | As part of Kevin’s master thesis while studying towards the master of fire engineering degree, Kevin has conducted further research on “predicting the activation time of a concealed sprinkler”. A brief description of a concealed sprinkler. It consists of sprinkler head which encase within a recess housing and hidden within the ceiling space. A cover plate is used as the finishing product to flush with the surface of the ceiling. Due to the aesthetic appearance compared to standard pendent sprinkler head (where sprinkler head is exposed below ceiling level), more concealed sprinklers are used in modern buildings. As the operation of concealed sprinkler required to go through two stages of activation mechanism prior to water spraying compared to the standard pendent sprinkler head, this may delay the operating of sprinkler. The results of Kevin’s findings would provide useful information to the fire engineers when considering the appropriate concealed sprinkler heads depending on the range of parameters to meet the fire safety requirements in the design.
  • Active Panel for NER Charted Interview | Kevin dedicated himself to be a volunteer NER panel to participate in the NER charted interview. This enables Kevin to maintain the adequate standard of the future fire engineer and increase the awareness of other engineers in relation to problem-solving strategies associated with new emerging items (such as the use of mass timber construction for building, the introduction of electric vehicles including VE charging stations within the buildings and the like). Kevin believes that his contributions would be beneficial to the society.
  • The Darlington Level 19P (The Star Casino in Gold Coast) | The existing Darlington development is a high-rise hotel building. The topmost level of the tower, Level 19 and Level 19P are used as a function venue and nightclub. Due to the interconnected floors between Level 19 and Level 19P, Kevin (as the project engineer) successfully developed the fire safety strategy to maximise the number of occupants across both levels while still maintain the adequate tenability conditions to allow occupants for evacuation. Through the use of advanced computational smoke modelling (FDS) and egress modelling (Pathfinder), Kevin managed to demonstrate and utilise the existing smoke hazard management system with several modifications to support the client’s request (to achieve maximum population).

Other select project experience:

  • Cladding related project – London Woolstore Apartments in Newstead QLD (2024): Project Manager
  • Cladding related project – Bupa National Cricket Centre in Albion QLD (2024): Project Manager
  • Toowoomba Courthouse at 159 Hume Street, Toowoomba, QLD (2024): Project Manager
  • Queensland Social Housing at 140-146 Mcleod Street, Cairns, QLD (2024): Project Manager
  • Bown Hills Health Quarter at 12-16 Thompson Street, Bowen Hills, QLD (2024): Project Manager
  • Woolworths Sugarlands in Bundaberg QLD (2024): Project Manager
  • Cleveland Medical at 19-21 Middle Street, Cleveland, QLD (2023): Project Manager
  • Cladding related project – 324 Queen Street, Brisbane (2023): Project Manager
  • Supagas Pinkenba Development at Pinkenba QLD Australia (2023): Project Manager
  • Claddings related project – James Cook University, Building 500, QLD, Australia (2022): Project Engineer
  • Bradnams Warehouse, QLD (2022): Project Manager
  • Premier Gympie Aged Care, QLD, Australia (2021): Project Manager
  • Residential building at 98-106 Duporth Ave, Maroochydore, QLD (2021): Project Manager
  • Mt Gravatt East Childcare Centre, QLD, Australia (2021): Project Manager
  • Indooroopilly State School, QLD (2021): Project Manager
  • Komatsu Warehouse, QLD (2020): Project Engineer
  • Residential building at 443 Queen Street, Brisbane, QLD (2020): Project Engineer
  • Pormpuraaw Police Station and Watch House, QLD (2020): Project Engineer
  • Australia Federal Police Building, QLD (2020): Project Manager
  • Caboolture Watch House, Caboolture, QLD, Australia (2019): Project Manager
  • Homemaker The Valley, QLD, Australia (2019): Project Manager
  • Wembley Business Centre, QLD (2019): Project Manager
  • St Vincent’s Private Hospital Northside, QLD, Australia (2019): Project Manager
  • Townsville Magistrate Court Building, Townsville, QLD, Australia (2018): Project Manager
  • Kawana Shoppingworld 5B, QLD, Australia (2017): Project Engineer
  • Gold Coast Private Hospital, QLD, Australia (2016): Project Engineer
  • Suncorp Stadium, QLD, Australia (2016): Project Engineer
  • Gabba Stadium, QLD, Australia (2016): Project Engineer
  • Grand Central Toowoomba, QLD, Australia (2015): Project Manager (construction stage)
  • Brisbane Private Hospital, QLD, Australia (2015): Project Engineer

My specialisations:

  • Performance based fire engineering solutions.
  • Building Fire Safety Risk Assessments for combustible cladding.
  • Computational two-zone smoke modelling/simulation (i.e. Cfast, B-Risk).
  • Computational fire and smoke modelling/simulation (i.e. FDS).
  • Computational evacuation modelling/simulation.
  • Radiation heat analysis (i.e. FireWind and FiRE softwares).

My qualifications and accreditations:

  • Bachelor of Civil Engineering, University of Canterbury (2008)
  • Master of Engineering in Fire Engineering, University of Canterbury (2012)