Blog Layout

Brent Cross' Smart Multi-story car park

Connor Felstead • Apr 01, 2023

Brent Cross' Smart Multi-story car park with adjoining stairs and lift lobbies

Background

Having a true historic accolade of being able to claim to be the first large enclosed shopping centre in the UK, Brent Cross shopping centre has added 'smart building' to their impressive resume, with their newly upgraded car parks and surrounding areas.

Challenge

With constant use, and old cabling infrastructure and energy pricing only increasing; the car parks and staircases would need to be upgraded to a more efficient and smarter model.

Consideration would need to be taken into account for sensor plans, as well as implementing a control plan that works during the day with high traffic, as well as during the night with less frequent traffic. Areas would need to be on a certain times, and off when lighting levels are adequate with natural light. It was apparent that this would not be a 'one size fits all' project.

Solution

Brent Cross worked with Harpers, the contractors, for installation of almost 2500 brand new LED fittings of varying types; including vapor seals, high bays, bulkheads, running men and more.

With the varied needs of areas, it was decided that some areas would be on a designed PIR plan, some areas would run off of astro-clock parameters and some areas would be switching only.

Completely dynamic and adaptive lighting controls were implemented so that during working hours, presence of 70% and absence of 10% would be present and night time, for cleaners, security and late-leaving workers would have 50% presence with 0% absence for the car parks. This maximises energy savings while taking into account the 'comfort' of the lighting to encourage shoppers to display the car park as safe.

Areas with ample daylight were placed on astro-clock timings so that when the light from natural sources started to dip, the high bays and other fittings would make the difference up to allow users to have sufficient lighting levels.

Zoning was implemented in the car parks, staircases and all areas where this would show a benefit to minimise the fittings on when needed, further reducing energy needs. Over-ride switches were also supplied in the event of safety emergencies or similar which puts every fitting to 100%.

All emergencies are monitored via the Lumitel platform, and allow full testing to occur when needed with a full log of the fitting's history.

Benefits

Utilising the dynamic lighting system means that devices change their behaviours during the day to match the changing needs of them throughout the day. With decreasing or increasing lighting levels from natural sources, the system itself changed to maximise energy saving while still providing what is needed.

Emergency monitoring and general health monitoring of all devices, via Lumitel, rapidly decreases maintenance costs and labour needs for the engineering department as well as completes the feedback loop to allow the user to know how the site is being used.