1 Bank Street, Canary Wharf, London, UK

The 97-acre estate known as Canary Wharf is one of the world’s iconic business centres, featuring 37 office buildings and over 16 million square feet of developed space. In addition to being the European home to many established companies, Canary Wharf is also home to Level39, an influential financial technology accelerator, and the Cognicity Smart Cities technology initiative.

Over 25 years of development, Canary Wharf has become home to over 300 shops, cafés, bars and restaurants with a working population of roughly 120,000. It is a vibrant centre for commerce, retail and leisure.

Designed by renowned architects Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), the new 700,000 square foot office commercial building is located at 1 Bank Street, Canary Wharf. The distinct, 27-storey building features three levels of state-of-the-art trading floors, a retail unit on the ground level and a basement car park. There is also a free-standing retail kiosk on South Dock Promenade, beautifully landscaped public space and public access to the Promenade.

1 Bank Street provides a capacity for 5,837 additional full-time jobs in the Canary Wharf estate. A 25-year lease for eight floors (280,000 square foot) has been agreed. The incoming tenant, a major European bank, will be the primary business anchor.

The Project

Canary Wharf Contractors called on industry stalwarts Siemens Building Technologies Division to provide the voice alarm system for 1 Bank Street. A trusted advisor, service provider and product vendor to the building industry, Siemens has been working with Canary Wharf for a number of years. The Siemens Building Technologies Division is renowned for providing energy-efficient, safe and secure buildings and infrastructure.

At 1 Bank Street, Siemens commissioned Baldwin Boxall Communications to specify and supply the system. Baldwin Boxall engineers, working closely with Siemens project managers, Tony Bain, specified an Eclipse4 voice alarm system for the complex project.

Modular and fully networkable, the Eclipse4 voice evacuation and public address system was the ideal choice for 1 Bank Street. The stand-alone system takes up minimal floor space with units fitted to the wall. This makes it the perfect solution for high rise buildings.

The bespoke voice alarm system specified for 1 Bank Street is comprised of 16 distributed Eclipse4s interconnected using a fire rated enhanced ring network to be compliant with BS5839 part 8. Each of the system’s 34 broadcast zones has monitored dual loudspeaker circuits. The specification allows for amplification to the shell and core areas within the building, utilising Quad 75 Watt amplifiers. In the event of power failure, the Eclipse4 system continues to operate on battery power for 24 hours on standby and 30 minutes of full use. The entire bespoke Eclipse4 system meets and exceeds the EN54-4 requirements.

The Fire Command Centre (FCC) at 1 Bank Street will house a touch screen microphone. The easy-to-use microphone uses Near Field Communication (NFC) for card-based operator log-in, providing access to a predetermined level of control. The system allows broadcasts of manual or digital emergency messages to single, multiple or all areas of the building.

Time and date-stamped activity and fault logs will be accessible via a VIGIL Unitouch touch screen paging station. The Unitouch is an intuitive, menu-driven and easy-to-use control system for live broadcasting and paging. The touch screen allows for fast access to fire microphones and routing of background music. In the instance of a fault, the Unitouch displays the fault as well as recommended solutions. Date and time-stamped fault diagnostics can be emailed with added notes.

Understanding that the needs of future building tenants may vary, Baldwin Boxall specified to allow for expansion. Additional Quad 150 Watt amplifiers have been added to each Eclipse4 unit for tenant fit-outs. In addition, the Eclipse4 units have space for tenants to further fit-out bespoke systems for their leased space. The result is an efficiently highly specified, future-proof system that will meet and exceed the building’s voice alarm requirements for many years to come.