Background
Chelsea Creek is an exciting new dockside development set in the heart of London. London-based property developers St George have created an outstanding selection of highly specified apartments and penthouses set within a series of tranquil waterways and riverside dock. This new dockside collection is set to be one of London’s most prestigious addresses, with 24-hour concierge service, managed car parking, a luxury health spa with swimming pool and fitness centre and the finest selection of shops, bars and restaurants in the area. Urmet are extremely proud to have been chosen to provide the door-entry and access control system for this exceptionally elegant new development.
The challenge
St. George needed a system for a phased, multi-block development that could operate on a site-wide IP backbone. The system needed to offer complete flexibility in terms of the number of concierges and where they were located. As with most developments of this nature, being able to relocate the concierge as the building work progresses is vital. An IP-based system now allows this by simply unplugging the RJ45 connector and moving the concierge PC to another location.
“We had to make some fundamental changes to our software to allow for the one concierge and lots of blocks starting with apartment number one" |
In addition to this, the developers needed a customised operating system that would allow each individual block to start with apartment number one, but still using only one concierge handset. Typically, this type of development would require the concierges to have multiple handsets on their desk – a common problem with traditional systems and something the developers were keen to avoid.
The solution
The system specified was IPervoice, Urmet’s IP door-entry platform. Urmet’s technical department in Italy set about making a number of bespoke changes to the software that would allow the apartments in each block to start with a number one. This allows for multiple apartments starting with apartment one without the need for an additional prefix.
Other valuable functions of IPervoice included:
Lift control - An added layer of resident security with Resident Lift Control for the penthouses. When entering the building, residents simply present their proximity token to any reader. This then calls the lift to the ground floor and automatically takes residents to their own floor. A similar function, operated via a remote lock release button on the video monitor in their apartment, also allows residents to send the lift to the ground floor when someone calls them. The Visitor Lift Control then only allows the visitor to select the floor they are visiting, which means they are prevented from entering the rest of the building.
RF car park control - all car park barriers are operated by radio frequency proximity tokens and are managed via the IPervoice front-end management system. This allows the user to have complete control over who goes into the car park – all from the comfort of their apartment. In contrast to conventional systems that require the manual registration of users, IPervoice RF barrier control will allow unlimited numbers of users to access the car park.
"Until IPervoice, we couldn’t have achieved that solution with any of our other systems.” |
Remote access - Because the system works across a network, full remote diagnostics have been made possible. This can be very useful during the early days of any project when the concierge is perhaps still getting used to operating the system. Most traditional systems are stand alone and not connected to the network and would, therefore, require a site visit to fix any problems.
The benefits
With Urmet’s range of IP solutions, all the blocks were interlinked to provide instant, single-platform control for all access and security-related requirements. Apart from the fact that the entire development operates on a single platform that can also be rolled out to any new buildings added subsequently at the site – thereby avoiding the need to replicate and extend countless different systems – the other main benefits offered by the Urmet solution are scalability and the fact that the entire system can be pre-configured off-site. This makes it easier to work with multiple contractors, particularly when the development is phased, as was the case here.
Commenting on the overall project, Urmet’s Managing Director, Manji Gami, stated: “We had to make some fundamental changes to our software to allow for the one concierge and lots of blocks starting with apartment number one – everyone will understand that problem. Until IPervoice, we couldn’t have achieved that solution with any of our other systems.”
