Smart Tower

Finding a specialised and tailored life safety solution for a multipurpose building is critical for protecting a wide range of assets and individuals within the building. Smart Tower, located in the capital of Bulgaria, needed a specialised life safety solution to protect over 60,000sqm across two buildings. With the vast amount of coverage and multifaceted features to consider, Sectron was called upon to take end-to-end responsibility to install the life safety systems, so all occupants could work and reside with peace of mind.

Smart Tower is a mixed-use development in the heart of Sofia, seamlessly integrating 17 luxury residential floors with 7 levels of contemporary commercial space across the two connected buildings and 4 underground parking levels. With an estimated occupancy of 1152, combined with a highly intricate building infrastructure, a flexible and large-scale life safety system was needed to deliver full coverage to all individuals across every floor in both blocks.

With the sheer scale of the project, Central District LTD appointed Sectron for full accountability and a streamlined installation within Smart Tower. Their unmatched engineering team experience, combined with their proven track record installing Hochiki products, ensured high levels of accuracy and precision throughout the project’s duration.  With over a decade of experience each, Spas Stankov and Spas Stoyanov took the lead as project managers, supported by engineer-designers Elena Pencheva and Dobrinka Tsvetkova to deliver the full installation.

“We have a great partnership with Hochiki, using their products for over 30 years. Their compliance with local fire regulations and advanced sensing technology guaranteed Smart Tower had an innovative fire system that is highly reliable and most importantly, reduces false alarms for occupants in the building.”

Stated Spas Stoyanov, one of Sectron’s project managers.

The main technology used, Hochiki's ESP intelligent range, backed by its world-proven open protocol, ESP (Enhanced Systems Protocol), ensured that throughout complex, multi-storey environments, any alarm activation could be pinpointed to an exact location, enabling faster emergency response times, minimising confusion and reducing unnecessary large-scale evacuations, a critical feature for Smart Tower's development. ESP’s robust, open-protocol capabilities also help reduce long-term maintenance costs by streamlining multiple product ranges onto one panel, eliminating additional costs for software and simplifying other manual processes to ensure the system's long-term reliability.

2,887 ACC-EN multi-sensors were installed throughout the main areas of the building as part of the addressable fire system. Incorporating both a thermal element and a photoelectric smoke chamber, the devices can detect both a rise in heat and the presence of smoke, ensuring comprehensive coverage against potential fires. Their adjustable sensitivity enhances the system's flexibility, allowing each device to be tailored to the specific environmental conditions in different areas within the building, delivering optimal performance and false alarm reduction.

Due to the modern interior of the blocks, Sectron had to ensure that the sensors and other detection devices within Smart Tower were in harmony with the internal décor. Dobrinka Tsvetkova, one of Sectron’s engineer-designers, commented on the importance of visual considerations when designing the system and how Hochiki’s ESP range ensured all aesthetic criteria were met:

"Hochiki's range of ESP sensors came in multiple variants including ivory, black and white, which gave us the flexibility when it came to overcoming Smart Tower's need for consistent aesthetics. We chose white to reflect the clean environment of all the spaces within the two blocks to deliver discreet yet effective protection that maintains the building's character and style."

An alternate solution was required to safeguard all residential apartments across 30 floors in both buildings. Hochiki's Conventional CDX range was used here. Sectron deployed 342 SOC-E3N conventional optical smoke detectors and 171 DCD-AE3 60°C rate-of-rise heat detectors within each apartment to safeguard occupants from the risk of both smoke and heat, enabling early fire detection and any subsequent emergency evacuation.

With the number of estimated occupants and the overall size of the application both technologies employed, the addressable and the conventional, needed to operate seamlessly together as well as being highly resilient to faults or accidental damages. Sectron utilised Hochiki's CHQ range of I/O modules to ensure continuous, round-the-clock monitoring and control. 171 CHQ-SZM single zone monitors, 73 CHQ-PCM plant control modules and 25 CHQ-MRC mains relay controllers were used to interface directly between the addressable and conventional fire alarm equipment.  This integration ensured that any faults within the conventional zones were immediately reported back to the addressable fire control panel, safeguarding the building and its occupants.

In addition to the extremely challenging and substantial infrastructure above ground, a more specialised solution was required for the 4,600sqm of basement level floors, primarily serving as a 4-storey underground car park. Underground spaces like this are prone to higher airflows and the presence of exhaust fumes, meaning that normal point smoke detection would generally be ineffective. Hochiki's Linear Heat Detection Cable (LHDC) can withstand harsher environments and still provide a localised heat detection solution, with an increased sensitivity to hot spots. This type of application ensures early heat detection, reducing the escalation of a large-scale fire spreading upwards to the office spaces and residential apartments.

“Hochiki’s multiple solutions made overcoming the challenges with Smart Tower’s infrastructure straightforward, especially regarding the underground car park. The open-protocol capabilities provided ultimate flexibility when integrating multiple, tailored solutions, which was a key consideration when designing the system.”

Commented Elena Pencheva, Sectron’s design engineer.

Spas Stankov, reflecting on the general installation, concluded:

“All systems and products were easy to install, minimising residential disruption so day-to-day activities could continue. The project’s success is a testament to Hochiki’s consistent quality and reliability with each installed system. Compliance regulations were fully met, but above all, we are confident that all assets and occupants are protected for the long-term.”

Smart Tower demonstrates how Hochiki's range of standard and specialist products can be seamlessly integrated across even the most complex infrastructure, tailored to meet the demands of any application.

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