Regent Street is one of the biggest shopping streets in the West End of London. With over two kilometers of store frontage and an exquisite assembly of prestigious international brands such as Burberry, Apple and Anthropologie, Regent street rivals world renowned shopping streets such as Champs-Élysées in France and America’s Fifth Avenue.
Regent Street is also home to some of London’s most esteemed architecture and is home to multiple Grade II facades designed by renowned architect John Nash.
The Store
Amongst these prestigious store fronts lies TUMI’s recently opened flagship store. There is no question why the leading international brand of premium travel, business and lifestyle accessories chose this destination at the centre of the capital’s shopping district for their flagship.
TUMI enlisted the help of award-winning designer Dror Benshetrit who used his philosophy of transformation and angles to give life to the brand’s original products in the vanguard of contemporary design.
Like any public building, the safety of the store’s visitors is paramount and employing a suitable fire detection system is an absolute necessity. Not only is the safety of visitors and staff critical but the potential damage a fire could cause to the premises and its valuable contents could be devastating. Therefore, help from Eurofyre was sought to devise a suitable fire detection solution.
The Requirements
Given their high level of experience and expertise as providers of specialist fire detection equipment, Eurofyre were engaged to offer consultancy and assist with the supply and technical support of the fire alarm system.
In doing so certain challenges were presented and the following criteria was to be deliberated:
- Preservation of aesthetics
Considering the hard work, time and cost of implementing Dror Benshetrit’s grand design, unsightly fire alarms and their respective components were to be kept to an absolute minimum to avoid disrupting the store’s grandeur. - Detection time
The safety of all the staff and the thousands of visitors that pass through every day is dependant on fast detection time. The faster a fire is detected the sooner action can be taken and evacuation procedures can be carried out. On top of this, fire and smoke damage to the building and its valuable stock can be greatly reduced with early warning of fire.
Following much planning and consideration, an Aspirating Fire Detection system was designed that closely observed all the requirements.
Components Used
EF-FT15 Microbore Aspirating Smoke Detectors
Each EF-FT15 aspirating smoke detector is capable of sampling air from up to 15 different areas through unobtrusive 6mm pipes. These discrete pipes can be left open ended or terminated with highly attractive chrome or white coloured sampling points and therefore do not interrupt the aesthetics of the building.
The EF-FT15 is a high sensitive detector that actively draws air from its protected areas with an enhanced vacuum pump. This contributes to extremely fast detection of fire, even in areas where obstruction from products, high ceilings and variable airflow and pressures are present.
These detectors were installed in a back of house area away from the public eye where they do not disrupt the appearance of the store and can easily be accessed for maintenance.
Profyre Analogue Addressable Smoke Detectors, Manual Call Points, Interfaces and Sounders
Analogue addressable smoke detectors, manual call points and sounders were installed in areas of the building such as staff areas and storage rooms where preservation of appearance was not important. ProFyre interfaces were also used to provide outputs to suppression and ventilation systems and to integrate the ASD devices to the fire alarm control panel.
ProFyre A2 Analogue Addressable Fire Alarm Panel
The compact, stylish and easy to install ProFyre A2 Analogue Addressable Fire Alarm Panel was used at the center of this fire alarm system. Capable of monitoring up to eight zones and 256 devices, the ProFyre A2 automatically allocates its connected field devices to zones by virtue of their logical address. Device text can then be entered using the panels inbuilt QWERTY keypad.
The ProFyre A2 is fully approved by Intertek (view the certificate here).
The ProFyre A2 fire alarm control panel was installed alongside the aspirating smoke detectors where it remains out of sight and offers easy access for maintenance.
For more information on the detection systems that Eurofyre provide or to discuss any of our products please feel free to get in touch either by phone on +44 (0) 1329 835 024, by email to [email protected] or via the online enquiry form situated on our Contact page.
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