Behind-the-scenes at Smart Building 150 Holborn
You can tell 150 Holborn is a special building the minute you walk in and gaze up past the architectural staircase to the roof garden, seven floors above. But you need to take the behind-the-scenes tour to find out what makes this Smart Building truly exemplary.
A unique, future-proofed Smart Building
Anyone involved in Smart Buildings will tell you that is really hard to keep the vision alive from the initial architectural drawings, through development and construction to tenant occupancy. Why? Because as development challenges rear their ugly head, individual technology partners bring different needs and budget restrictions come to bear, the original vision often gets diluted or lost altogether.
What makes 150 Holborn different?
150 Holborn is different because the landlord, Sidara, one of the world’s leading consultancy companies for large construction projects, is also the tenant for the entire building.
Designed to headquarter up to 11 of Sidara’s global brands, 150 is therefore a showcase for what Sidara can deliver at the forefront of technology. There would be no value engineering out the smart technology on this project. Quite the opposite. The vision was at the heart of everything.
The result is a building that bristles with Smart capability, with 60,000 data-points reporting on every aspect of performance every 5 minutes, enabling real-time decision-making to maximise occupancy comfort, security, cost-effectiveness and sustainability.
Lisa Kenny, Head of Client Experience at Sidara, says they have had over 18,000 visitors this year alone.
“People sit in meetings with architects, smart building consultants, contractors and vendors and get told what can and can’t happen. They come here and can see what can be achieved when you put Smart first.”
Best-practice at every level
What makes a tour so compelling is that 150 pushes the art of what technology can deliver at every level – and it’s all on show here.
This is borne out by the key technology partners, Ideal, Cisco, Schneider Electric and Para.
Working closely together, these four technology companies ensured that the Information Technology (IT) like networks and Wi-Fi, talk to the Operational Technology (OT) – lifts and energy systems for example – and Internet of Things (IoT) like blinds and CCTV, to create a truly Smart Building.
The data can then be viewed and analysed. The creation of a Digital Twin for the entire building gives real-time insights, whilst simplifying maintenance and technology evolution.
Matthew Wallace, Digital Buildings Sales Director at Schneider Electric, explains that the Digital Twin functionality is just one part of the innovation here.
“We produced a whole new Building Data Platform for 150, consisting of an Independent Data Layer sitting on top of the Building Management System that controls all of the OT, sensors and IoT throughout the building. This is now the established backbone for the Intelligent Ready Building (IRB) approach we offer as a template for new projects.”
What do you want from a Smart Building?
We asked a selection of visitors on our latest 150 Holborn Open House Tour, “What’s the Smartest Thing a Smart Building Can Deliver?" Their range of answers gives an insight into how challenging it is to deliver a building that meets everyone’s needs, from landlords and developers to occupiers and individual employees.
Does ‘Smart’ have to be developer-led?
Moto Shakoori, Founder and CEO at Ideal, is quick to point out that whilst 150 Holborn has proved what is possible, there are many ways to deliver Smart.
“This is a brilliant showcase in the art of the possible, but Smart can be delivered at any level. We work with landlords, developers, construction contractors and tenants, as well as architects, M&E consultants, facilities management companies and many others to design and implement Converged Network Systems as the starting point for Smart.
“That can be one floor in a building to give your people a brilliant workplace experience, a huge stadium like Co-Op Live or the tallest building in the City of London.”
Come and see for yourself…
If you would like a behind-the-scenes tour of 150 Holborn, Register today and we can arrange an individual tour or let you know when our next Open House Tour is scheduled.
