Apollo Protects New £35m College from Fire
Apollo fire detectors have been chosen to protect a new £35
million college campus redevelopment at Cosham, near Portsmouth.
The contract to supply and install the fire system for Highbury
College was awarded to CHC Systems Limited, based in Ruislip,
Middlesex.
The site
Highbury College Portsmouth is one of the most dynamic
educational establishments in the South East and has undergone
extensive redevelopment across its main sites to provide some of
the most modern learning facilities in Europe. The College offers
collegiate, corporate and community courses for 14-19 year olds and
adults, and attracts some 12,000 students locally, nationally and
internationally.
The £35 million development at Cosham provides a vocational
training-focused campus. The new building is four storeys high and
features a glazed 'street' with views into a number of departments.
Training facilities include specialist computer rooms, a fully
equipped library and the latest e-enabled classrooms. Other
features include an Internet café and a full-size sports hall and
fitness centre.
In addition to state-of-the-art training facilities, the new
building also features the latest 'green' technology, including one
of the largest heat pump installations of its kind in the UK. This
will help to reduce the College's carbon footprint by more than 25
per cent. The building is also equipped with solar panels on the
roof, which will produce 13,600kW of electricity per year. Any
power not used by the College will be fed back into the national
grid.
Other environmental features include high-tech blinds on the
windows to reduce solar glare, auto shutdown on all the computers
when they are not in use and PIR (expand) movement sensors in the
classrooms that automatically turn lights on and off.
Fire system requirements
The specification for the fire detection system was equally
high. In addition to providing 24-hour protection for the new
building, its occupants and its contents, the fire system needed to
meet a number of 'cause and effect' scenarios.
Denis Foley, Managing Director of CHC Systems, comments:
"Initially, we used the client's fire strategy to determine the
cause and effects required for the new fire system. With a building
of this sophistication this does not just involve raising an alarm
in the event of fire: we also needed to interface with numerous
building management system functions. These included activating air
dampers and returning lifts safely to the ground floor in the event
of an emergency. There was also a requirement to interface the new
fire system with existing fire systems in other buildings on the
site.
"The sheer diversity involved led us to recommend Apollo fire
detection technology. Apollo products are compatible between
different ranges, which allowed us to choose exactly the right
detector or device for the local situation, whether a classroom or
an open communal area. The wide selection of audible and visual
devices in the Apollo range was also invaluable in this regard,
enabling us to select sounder bases, beacon bases and open area
sounders as the situation demanded."
System specification
The new fire detection system is based around two Morley ZX
control panels, with a ten-loop panel controlling the main building
and a two-loop panel in the sports building. In total, CHC Systems
installed more than 1350 Apollo XP95 and Discovery intelligent
devices, including around 600 bases, base sounders and sounder
beacon bases. Intrinsically safe (IS) Apollo fire detectors have
been fitted in the building's oil delivery area and paint
stores.
The ability to mix and match across different intelligent Apollo
ranges is due to the use of an open digital protocol which has
remained consistent over time. As all Apollo products effectively
speak the same language, the fire system will also be
future-proofed, making maintenance and system extension or
modification at a later date much easier.
Although the cause and effect sequences between the fire system
and the building management functions are quite complex, the
evacuation procedures are simple. If a manual call point is
activated, the system allows a four-minute window in which the
reason for the alarm can be investigated. If the system is not
reset within that period, then a full alarm will be raised and the
building will be evacuated.
If an individual smoke or heat detector registers a change from
the normal state, the four-minute investigation delay also applies.
If more than one detector raises an alert, the fire system goes
into alarm immediately and the building is again evacuated on a
'one out, all out' basis.
The fire system also interfaces with the building management
system to release controlled doors and send all lifts to the ground
floor, deactivating them until the alarm is over. It also shuts
down the ventilation system and other plant, as well as turning on
the emergency lighting.
It was critical for the client that the new Highbury Campus was
up and running in time for the start of term on 7 September 2009.
Despite some delays in the construction phase, which reduced the
amount of time that CHC Systems had to fit the fire system, the
project was completed on time.
Denis Foley concludes: "A modern learning facility like Highbury
College represents a whole series of challenges from a fire
protection perspective, ranging from wide open spaces like the
'street', to high risk confined areas like the paint stores.
Apollo's fire detection technology was equal to every task and it
enabled us to supply the customer with a reliable, flexible fire
system that will protect the College's new asset and the people who
use it for many years to come."
Highbury College was officially opened by HRH Princess Anne on
22 October 2009.
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