Berkeley Homes’ flagship Woodberry
Park apartment development in North London is using an advanced smoke and
natural ventilation system from SE Controls to not only provide protection for
residents in the event of a fire, but to also create a better environment by actively
managing any excessive heat build up in corridors.
Located on Seven Sisters Road,
Woodberry Park is part of the innovative Woodberry Down regeneration programme
being undertaken by the London Borough of Hackney, Genesis Housing and Berkeley
Homes, which will eventually create almost 4,700 homes, combining social and
affordable housing with private residential apartments.
SE Controls was commissioned to
design and install a SHEVTEC® mechanical extraction smoke ventilation systems
within two separate low rise private residential blocks within Woodberry Park,
which provide a total of 117 luxury apartments.
In addition to smoke ventilation, a
key part of SE Controls’ project specification and design brief was that the
system should also incorporate an ‘environmental ventilation’ mode, enabling it
to monitor heat build up in communal corridors and lobbies while also managing the
operation of automatic vents to reduce the temperature and introduce fresh,
cooler air into the building.
SE Controls’ Project Leader on
Woodberry Park, David Sawyer, explained: “Heat build up in corridors with
multi-storey apartment buildings can become an issue as many developments use
efficient distributed heating systems where pipework runs along the corridors
to each apartment.”
He added: “The cumulative thermal
gain generated by the pipework can make corridors, lobbies and communal spaces
uncomfortably hot, which is why we originally developed the environmental
ventilation mode as an integral part of our smoke ventilation system
capabilities, to help developers overcome this issue and provide a better
environment for residents.”
The comprehensive SHEVTEC smokeventilation and environmental ventilation system installed in the two
residential blocks, which have between four and seven floors, includes both an
extract shaft and air inlet shaft in each the building’s two cores, with smoke
dampers fitted at each level.
In normal smoke ventilation mode,
if a fire is detected by building’s smoke sensors, the SHEVTEC roof mounted fan
sets will start, while staircase vents and smoke vents located on the fire
floor will open, enabling up to 5m3 per second of smoke to be drawn
through the extraction shaft and provide a smoke free escape route for
residents.
Tamper proof manual control points
are installed throughout the buildings and separate fireman’s control points are
also incorporated as part of the system, enabling fire service personnel to
manually control the operation of every damper and staircase vent as well as the
smoke and heat exhaust fans.
In addition to the system’s fire
safety role, it is also designed to operate in a ‘natural environmental
ventilation’ mode, which allows temperatures in corridors, lobbies and communal
areas to be maintained at comfortable levels and avoid the heat build up caused
by the under floor heating pipework feeding individual apartments.
Each lobby that is served by the
smoke shafts is fitted with a ceiling mounted temperature sensor, which
triggers the roof mounted environmental ventilation fan to run when the
temperature exceeds the pre-determined set point to vent the warm air and
replace it with cooler air from outside.
As with the smoke ventilation
operation, only the dampers on the over-temperature floor will open and once
the temperature has reduced sufficiently, they will close again and the
ventilation fan will switch off. External temperature sensors are also
installed within the system, which ensures that the environmental ventilation
system will not operate if the outside temperature is higher than that within
the corridors.
SE Controls specialises in the
design, project management and installation of advanced smoke ventilation and
natural ventilation solutions to meet the needs of architects, contractors,
building services engineers and facilities managers worldwide. Further
information on SE Controls’ products, solutions and projects can be obtained by
visiting www.secontrols.com or calling +44 (0)1543 443060.
