61 Oxford St smoke control and BEMS

Project title: 61 Oxford Street

Location: London

Client: Essex Services Group

Service: BEMS & Smoke Control

Project Background

61 Oxford Street is a new build in the heart of London’s tourist and retail district, consisting of a large Zara clothing store on the first four floors, topped by two floors of offices with luxury duplex apartments above.

The project consisted of a fully-integrated setup of BEMS (including energy metering), smoke shaft and smoke control systems to the office levels, designed to maintaining clear height for escape routes during a fire, and allow for easier fire fighter access.

The Project

The Problem

Group SCS was appointed to manage the BEMS and smoke control aspects of the project, taking charge of implementing energy management/distribution around the building and installation of a mechanical smoke shaft plus an array of fire and smoke dampers throughout the building’s ducting, ensuring smoke and fire can’t leak into other areas of the building should a fire break out.

Our Involvement

Addressable dampers were employed – as opposed to traditional fusible link – to allow for maintenance and monitoring onsite without the need to individually locate and test each damper within the ductwork (in, for example, basement areas where dampers were employed to compartmentalise basement rooms).

Our Solution

By integrating BEMS, smoke shaft performance and fire/smoke dampers into the same controls network, Group SCS was able to present the building’s end-user with a single point of HMI control. This arrangement allows for not only system control/override, but also live real-time fault monitoring.

In this way, any component of the energy or fire protection system can be manipulated, tested and overridden from a single screen, and the system itself presented significant cost savings in terms of installation and wiring, as well as ongoing energy use.

Present the building’s end-user with a single point of HMI control by integrating BEMS, smoke shaft performance and fire/smoke dampers into the same controls network

Any component of the energy or fire protection system can be manipulated, tested and overridden from a single screen

System presented significant cost savings in terms of installation and wiring, as well as ongoing energy use

Mike Parkhurst, Engineering Manager, Group SCS:

“This project could have been very complex and unwieldy, but our modular addressable dampers and controls led to far simpler commissioning and ongoing service."