St Giles Circus, London , Skanska Konnect
Security design and installation
Background
St Giles Circus is a mixed-use development in London WC2 built for Outernet by Skanska.
The project comprises retail, leisure and entertainment spaces, commercial offices and residential accommodation across 4 new buildings and a number of existing buildings.
The largest of the new buildings incorporates an innovative, retractable façade on its middle floors, revealing an urban gallery that will be open to the public at street level. The building’s foundations straddle the Crossrail tunnel, above which the team has constructed an underground ‘box within a box’ to contain an auditorium.
Another of the new buildings incorporates a Victorian retained façade. The existing building along the north side of Denmark Street, form London’s ‘Tin Pan Alley’, which is an area with a rich history in music. Denmark Street was once home to ‘The NME’ and recording studios that saw The Kinks, the Rolling Stones and Elton John pass through their doors.
The refurbishment covers a number of Grade II listed buildings on Denmark Street, Denmark Place and St Giles High Street, some dating back to before the Great Fire of London in 1666.
Skanska is one of the world’s leading development and construction companies established in the UK in 2000, Skanska has more than 3,300 local experts delivering projects across sectors including infrastructure, real estate, defence, education, highways, rail and water.
Skanska secured the build for the mixed-use development in London at St Giles Circus and released a tender for the provision of security systems on the site.
Project
After an extensive and detailed tender process, Skanska awarded this prestigious project to Optyma Security Systems. Optyma were successful in winning the complete security design and installation package based on its proven track record of delivering similar projects incorporating large public space, heritage buildings and high technology equipment along with its expertise in security systems integration.
The £3M project included ten different systems which needed to be installed and integrated together by Optyma Security Systems:
Video Management Command & Control Software - Genetec Security Center
100 Access controlled doors - AXIS Communications
170 IP CCTV cameras - AXIS Communications
15 Lift destination controllers - Mercury Security Systems
14 Bespoke video intercom systems - Zenitel
Guard tour system - Checkpoint
Time and attendance system - Suprema
Key traka system - Assa
Panic alarm system- Honeywell
Network time server - Wharton
PC’s & Servers – Dell Corp
Solution
Optyma’s design team worked closely with the client’s specification to design and install a system that met all their required needs including:
Providing flexibility and future-proofing
Providing reliability and robustness
Built in scalability
Integration of ten different technologies
All works were carried out in line with current British and European security standards together with the National Security Inspectorate guidelines of which Optyma are NSI Gold accredited.
Optyma Security Systems completed the installation and commissioning of multiple systems for this highly prestigious project and delivered a fully working solution to Skanska on time and within budget.