Project Background
Over three million square feet of office space is being built at King’s Cross in 19 new and historic buildings, designed by a number of world-renowned architects – each bringing its own distinctive contribution to a scheme which is one of the most exciting and interesting in Central London.
Internet giant Google UK is citing its UK headquarters here in a landmark building which pushes the boundaries of sustainable workplace design. In fact, every office building at King’s Cross is designed with environmental sustainability at its core, hence the need for Group SCS’s sustainable controls solution.
Photo © Héctor Ochoa (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The Project
Our Solution
Group SCS was tasked with designing and installing a complete smoke control infrastructure across the development. This encompassed natural smoke control shaft systems (UniVent), mechanical smoke control shaft systems (UniForce), and smoke ventilation across three basement levels, each featuring addressable damper control feeding directly back to interactive touchscreens for the building’s management team.
The centrepiece of the project was a network of 125 dampers organised across three zones, requiring a highly flexible and reliable control architecture to ensure safe, responsive operation throughout the building.
SCS’s Motor Control Centre (MCC) was integrated with the air handling units and extract fans via standard I/O, enabling precise coordination between the smoke control systems and the building’s wider mechanical infrastructure. Communication across the three-zone damper network was achieved via BACnet over IP fieldbus, allowing seamless addressable control and real-time status monitoring.
UniVent natural smoke control shaft system
UniForce mechanical smoke control shaft system
Smoke ventilation across three basement systems with addressable damper control feeding directly back to interactive touchscreens for the building’s management
Smoke control, 
