Solving the challenge of fire safety in mixed-use office towers
Integrated fire detection and voice alarm protects two new office buildings in Taguig City, Metro Manila
Mixed-use office towers combine multiple workspaces and retailers under one roof. Providing consistent fire safety for different tenants – each with different floor plans in their office spaces – can prove challenging from a security manager’s perspective. This is why premium developer W Group was looking for an integrated system to ensure the highest level of fire safety for its two latest office buildings in the financial district of Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City, Metro Manila.
Different tenants – different needs
The vibrant financial district of Bonifacio Global City in Taguig recently saw the addition of two new modern office towers. The project was realized by W Group, a leading developer of office buildings in the city of 1.8 million inhabitants. The 25-story Citibank Plaza building offers 50,000 square meters of premium offices spaces. The W City Center boasts 55,000 square meters of offices on 29 stories plus three stories of retail space. The list of tenants is equally impressive: Global financial services provider Citibank occupies the entire Citibank Plaza building, while W City Center leases office spaces to a range of local and international enterprises.
Full visibility for security managers
Bosch Philippines won the contract to equip Citibank Plaza and W City Center with a scalable, IP-based solution. At both locations, Bosch experts installed optical smoke detectors – 2,000 units at Citibank Plaza and over 1,300 at W City Center – for quick and accurate fire detection. Centrally managed via the Modular Fire Panel 5000 Series, these addressable smoke detectors are supplemented by heat detectors and manual call points for end-to-end fire safety. Meeting a key client requirement from W Group, the number and positioning of detectors and other system components can be adjusted and expanded flexibly to meet every tenant’s floorplan.
For an added layer of safety, the IP-based system provides full visibility of the current situation to operators: Each building floor is defined as its own zone, while the networked smoke detectors report the exact location of a fire down to a specific room. For ease of maintenance, the advanced detectors perform constant self-monitoring and send cleaning or replacement alerts to the Modular Fire Panel 5000 Series. At Citibank Plaza, the solution is also part of the Bosch Building Integration System (BIS). This integration allows operators to use the BIS Automation Engine as the graphical user interface (GUI) for monitoring and control of alarms.
A more efficient approach to building evacuation
The system features Smart Safety Link, a direct interface between fire alarm and PLENA Voice Alarm System (VAS) from Bosch. It can be set up and configured easily and in a matter of minutes. By comparison, manually creating a point-to-point connection for ten evacuation zones would require up to two hours; or several days for a project of this size. During a fire or emergency, the Smart Safety Link allows operators to conduct an evacuation by zones in order of priority.
Evacuation starts with occupants closest to the threat then moving on to adjacent floors. The PLENA VAS supports coordinated evacuations with clear pre-recorded voice instructions enhanced by simultaneous horn and strobe alarms. This efficient combination of fire alarm and voice instructions has proven to achieve time savings for emergency responders.
In day-to-day operations, the modular system is easy to expand and adapt to changing needs of different tenants, while the seamless interface between fire alarm and public address creates an end-to-end safety chain from earliest detection to orderly evacuation.
We find the Bosch team in the Philippines very responsive in addressing our needs, which is crucial in this competitive environment,
