Scalable video & fire alarm solution safeguards Port Praski

Port Praski is one of Europe’s largest architectural projects, occupying an area of 38 hectares overlooking the Vistula River in the heart of Poland's capital Warsaw. Likened to a ‘city inside a city’, the vast multi-phase development offers over 160,000m² of residential accommodation and 190,000m² of office space. Alongside retail areas, hotels and restaurants, it features a hospital, extensive green spaces and a purpose-built media park.

The site’s developers demanded a partner with the scale, expertise and track record to support all phases of providing a comprehensive video security, fire detection and building management solution site-wide. What’s more, Port Praski’s developers required a future-proof solution with the flexibility to accommodate plans for further expansion.

Round the clock security at Port Praski is provided by a blend of hundreds of bullet, dome and moving cameras that keep watch over outdoor and underground areas, building entrances, garages and elevators. As well as providing a visible deterrent against potential crime, vandalism and antisocial behaviour, the cameras play a valuable role in capturing evidence to support investigation into incidents, and can also assist with the rapid identification of parking violations.

Centralised control of cameras, storage and recording systems is streamlined by the intuitive, easy to use Bosch Video Management System (BVMS) that can scale as needed to accommodate video, audio and data from large numbers of cameras. Similarly, picture quality can be readily upgraded in line with future needs, by adding higher resolution cameras without the need to replace the port’s current IP network infrastructure and BVMS.

Port Praski additionally required a video security solution that would ensure privacy and discretion for its up-scale residents that include VIPs and celebrities. To achieve this, camera images can only be viewed by security personnel and system administrators with authorisation to access the network. Furthermore, images are carried over a totally private IP network that’s isolated from the Internet to prevent hacking or interception of sensitive data.

Extra peace of mind for occupants is assured by the video management platform’s masking function. This electronically obscures sensitive parts of the outdoor cameras’ field of view – such as apartment windows and other private areas – so they’re not visible to security staff as they review camera footage.

Port Praski’s developers demanded a state-of-the-art fire alarm system – the Modular Fire Panel 5000 Series from Bosch – to maintain the 24/7 safety of residents, businesses and visitors. This solution naturally meets latest legislative requirements.

Furthermore, it gives occupants and tenants the assurance of a reliable solution to minimise false alarms, together with effective redundancy across the system to avoid any single point of failure. Protection of at-risk areas includes optical and optical-thermal detectors in garages and smoke aspiration system in lift shafts, plus further detectors in inter-ceiling spaces.

Alongside the skillset and technical resources to deliver such a large-scale project, confidence in the Bosch brand was also a key factor in Port Praski’s choice of partner. This reflects the high expectations of the development’s residential and commercial clients for the quality of their environment.