On Sheikh Zayed Road is one of Dubai’s most prestigious construction projects ever, the Emirates Twin Towers. Consisting of a 356m high office tower with a gross floor area of 68,000sq.m and an adjacent 306m high 400 room hotel, it is a unique architectural icon of Dubai. With the language of the architecture being intentionally corporate and inspired by traditional Islamic themes, the design concentrates the buildings away from the highway in a central portion of the site. This way the complex is distinctly set apart from the standard commercial development and the twin towers are positioned so as to create meaningful visual compositions from every viewpoint. As in the poetic movements of a pas-de-deux, the slender triangular towers clad in aluminium panels with copper and silver reflective glass capture the changing light of the desert sun and show off their dramatic integrated illumination at nightfall.
Beyond the immediate periphery of the building complex, the formal landscaped environment moves into a natural park-like setting with gentle contours and lush vegetation buffering the roadways around the site perimeter completing the development which represents a major destination point and offers a sense of an oasis amidst an urban concrete environment.
The Fire Detectors and Alarm System installed at this prestigious project had to be the best and the experts at MK Systems (Dubai) proposed Penton’s RCS5/FTS and SENTRY range of voice alarm loudspeakers and the Gent flagship product, System 34000.
The Voice Alarm System is integrated into the Fire Detection and Alarm System in a fully distributed architecture. Intelligent distributed amplifier units are self-contained units comprising microprocessor and logic systehttps://pentonuk.co.uk/product-category/loudspeakers/cabinet/m, module, evacuate/alarm message store, charges and battery back-up to comply to BS5839, amplifier to suit the load, with twin circuits per zone to comply with BS7443 and BS5839 Part 8. Providing a seamless interface, the self-contained nature of the unit enables pre-recorded messages to be broadcast as part of the fire alarm configuration. In addition, Audio Control Units enable the operator to make a live speech broadcast, or manually initiate pre-recorded emergency messages to selected/all zones.
The principle means of alarm in the building is the voice message broadcast, using either the Penton RCS5/FTS Ceiling Loudspeakers or the SENTRY6/ST Metal Cabinet Loudspeakers alongside sensor/sounder units and sounders in stairwells.
Sensor/sounder units installed in each guest room provide the local alarm in case of fire; evacuation messages are then enabled after a pre-set time delay using the cascade principle, allowing orderly evacuation. Each zone (floor) is secured by two speaker circuits, each speaker being BS5839 Part 8 compliant. For this project the speakers are fitted with thermal fuses and ceramic terminal blocks. In the event of a fire, system continuity is paramount – if one or two speakers are burnt out in a fire the other loudspeakers, driven from distributed amplifiers, remain operational.
The overall system consists of some 5,500 detection points. 4,000 speakers providing protection of a highly reliable nature. The system also offers great flexibility in configuration and programming to meet complex requirements the company comments that Gent True Analogue Addressable Systems combined with Penton Loudspeakers “remains the ideal choice for major projects in the region”.