King’s Cross

Project title: King’s Cross

Location: London

Client: BAM

Service: Smoke Control

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.

Google UK is joined by PRS for Music, BNP Paribas Real Estate and the London Borough of Camden – whose headquarter building is one of the first in London to be awarded a BREEAM “Outstanding” rating.

Photo © Héctor Ochoa (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Project

The Client

Bam appointed SCS Building Automation to the smoke control project at office buildings in the new King’s Cross development.

Our Involvement

Group SCS was tasked with installing natural and mechanical smoke control shaft systems, as well as smoke ventilation across three basement systems with addressable damper control feeding directly back to interactive touchscreens for the building’s management.

Our Solution

A Priva Blue ID system was the heart of Group SCS Building Automation’s value-engineered solution, as a cost-effective way of setting up a control mechanism for the dampers and standard plant equipment, while allowing direct communication with the building’s BEMS and the Siemen’s touchscreen interface with which the building owners, fire officers and building control were already familiar.

SCS’ MCC linked to the air handling units and extract fans via standard I/O. It also enabled the system to communicate to fieldbus (via BACnet over IP) to control the building’s three-zone network of 125 dampers.

In addition, it allowed for communication over IP via Modbus to the Seimens touchscreen interface (which itself was linked to by our smoke control system, for the ultimate in operational continuity).

An additional challenge was presented by the contractor’s desire for the system to also communicate directly to the Trend BMS installed in the building. Again, Priva’s Blue ID controls were up to the task, utilising BACnet over IP to enable the integration of these disparate systems.

This user control is geared towards managing the day to day ventilation strategies per zone, allowing e.g. adjustment of damper settings and fault identification where appropriate.

SCS engineers were able to successfully install this unusually flexible method of control while offering energy efficiency to the building user, in keeping with Group SCS’s Total Building Automation® ethos of safety and efficiency.

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

A Priva Blue ID system was the heart of SCS Building Automation’s value-engineered solution

Matt Thompson, Project Manager, Group SCS:

“This way of working integrates system to save on everything from wiring and installation costs to long-term energy usage for the building, and working with the great support of partners such as Priva makes achieving this vision more possible now than it has ever been."