A new boutique hotel has recently opened its doors in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter. This historic location, now known as the Titanic Hotel, has life safety products from manufacturer Hochiki Europe. The now-listed site was the headquarters for shipbuilders Harland and Wolff.
In more recent years, the area around the listed building has been turned by property developers, Harcourt, into the ‘Titanic Quarter’, a water-front regeneration. This includes the Titanic Hotel, that features an art-deco style interior.
When designing a life safety system for the hotel, the project called for a solution that could be installed with minimal disruption, and networked to suit the various bedrooms, kitchens, a public-accessed museum, and conference spaces. Hochiki Europe supplied a range of products from its Enhanced Systems Protocol (ESP) range of intelligent, addressable fire detection and alarm products.
Sensors in the ESP range are designed to use an electronics-free, ‘twist-fit’ mounting base. This lets installers, in this case Belfast-based Atlas World, fix the bases at “first fix” stage, with sensors added at a later stage, once the area is clean. The ‘twist-fit’ feature also allows flexibility when fitting at height or in hard to reach areas. Facilities managers can carry out maintenance as the sensor heads can be accessed from ground level using specialised smoke poles.
Over 200 sensors from Hochiki Europe’s ESP range were installed. Using a mix of ACC-EN multi-sensors and ALN-EN smoke sensors, Atlas World were able to programme the devices to suit the parts of the hotel and their differing life safety considerations.
Richard Wharram, Regional Sales Manager at Hochiki Europe, said: “Hotels present a very unique set of requirements when it comes to life safety, even more so when they are listed buildings like the Titanic Hotel. The need to find solutions that match the different spaces and uses within the hotel, from restaurant kitchens and bars to bedrooms, public areas and lounges, while also ensuring ease of installation, can prove challenging.
“Our ESP range is incredibly versatile and can be installed and networked in a way that works perfectly for each of these environments, ensuring optimum system monitoring across the entire building. It’s fantastic to see how new technology is helping protect such an iconic project and a unique part of Belfast’s history.”
Robert Creagmile, Key Account Director at Atlas World, added: “Installations in buildings with high ceilings and heritage features require specialist solutions. Hochiki Europe’s range of sensors can be fitted in two parts so they were ideal for use in the Titanic Hotel. Thanks to Hochiki Europe, we were able to install the system with greater efficiency with little disruption to day-to-day operations.”
And Adrian McNally, General Manager of Titanic Hotel Belfast added: “The restoration of the former Harland and Wolff Offices into a luxury hotel has been very complex. It is vital we have all current fire life safety systems in place to ensure the comfort and safety of our guests is not compromised. However, we also want to make sure we preserved the architectural and visible integrity of yesteryear. We believe we have achieved this as our hotel has the most advanced technology to allow this safety, while being nearly invisible to our guests.”
Visit: www.hochikieurope.com/esp.
