Berkeley Homes’ flagship Woodberry Park apartment development in North London is using an advanced smoke and natural ventilation system from SE Controls to not only provide protection for residents in the event of a fire, but to also create a better environment by actively managing any excessive heat build up in corridors.
Located on Seven Sisters Road, Woodberry Park is part of the innovative Woodberry Down regeneration programme being undertaken by the London Borough of Hackney, Genesis Housing and Berkeley Homes, which will eventually create almost 4,700 homes, combining social and affordable housing with private residential apartments.
SE Controls was commissioned to design and install a SHEVTEC® mechanical extraction smoke ventilation systems within two separate low rise private residential blocks within Woodberry Park, which provide a total of 117 luxury apartments.
A key part of SE Controls’ project specification and design brief was that the smoke ventilation system should also incorporate an ‘environmental ventilation’ mode, enabling it to monitor heat build up in communal corridors and lobbies while also managing the operation of automatic vents to reduce the temperature and introduce fresh, cooler air into the building.
In normal smoke ventilation mode, if a fire is detected by building’s smoke sensors, the SHEVTEC roof mounted fan sets will operate while staircase vents and smoke vents located on the fire floor will open, enabling up to 5m3 per second of smoke to be drawn through the extraction shaft and provide a smoke free escape route for residents.
When operating in ‘natural environmental ventilation’ mode temperatures are monitored by ceiling mounted sensors in each lobby served by the smoke shafts. If the temperature exceeds a pre-determined set point a roof mounted environmental ventilation fan is activated, which vents the warm air and replaces it with cooler air from outside.
