Harvard University campus buildings, a university smoke curtain application

INDUSTRIES

Smoke Curtains for Universities & Schools

Universities specify smoke curtains where open sightlines are the design intent — atriums, labs, and libraries. The curtain is invisible until the fire alarm deploys it, so the architecture reads exactly as drawn.

REPRESENTATIVE

MIT · Harvard · UMass Integrated Sciences Building · Princeton Chemistry Building · Georgetown · Columbia · 25+ other institutions

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Campus buildings

Science buildings and libraries concentrate atriums, connecting stairs, and open study floors — exactly the openings the IBC requires protected. Deployable curtains protect them without walls or fire-rated glass.

UMass Integrated Sciences Building and Princeton Chemistry Building are documented in Case Studies.

Harvard University campus buildings, a university smoke curtain application

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Stages & auditoriums

Most building codes require a fire safety curtain at the stage proscenium, lowered when fire starts on or behind the stage to protect the audience until the house is evacuated.

A single curtain covers a proscenium up to 30 feet high and 60 feet wide, deploys and retracts in seconds, and needs only 14 inches above the ceiling for the headbox — the curtain runs on a steel track mounted to the proscenium wall. Deployment is automatic on smoke detection or fusible link, with manual deploy and retract by key switch.

The fabric is asbestos-free, and replacing legacy asbestos stage curtains in older auditoriums is a common application. Representative: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (see the Video Library).

Theater auditorium with proscenium stage protected by a deployable smoke curtain

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