Fire safety design for the Kalasatama towers

The Redi shopping centre in Kalasatama, developed by SRV, was completed in 2018. Since then, SRV has built four residential tower blocks in the area and, most recently, Finland’s tallest office building, the Horisontti tower.

“Over the years, PAP has got to know the Kalasatama area very well,” says Oskari Muhonen, system designer at PAP Group. “We delivered the fire alarm systems for the Redi shopping centre, the first part of the complex to be completed, and since then we have helped build fire safety for every one of the Kalasatama towers.”

Top professionals working together

PAP has been involved in the Kalasatama projects as a subcontractor to the building services company Amplit Oy. “We have acted as system supplier and as the fire alarm contractor. In the latter role, our responsibilities have included reviewing the designs and ensuring that installation work is carried out in accordance with the fire alarm guidelines. We have also been responsible for commissioning and testing the systems, as well as the necessary liaison with the authorities.”

The most recent of the towers, the Horisontti office building, was a particularly enjoyable assignment for PAP. “We were involved in this project at a very early stage. We worked closely with Ramboll, which was responsible for the electrical design of the site, and with the consultancy Jensen Hughes, which carried out the fire engineering design. Working like this is smart in many ways. When you make sure at the early stage that the solutions planned for the site will also work in real life, you avoid later changes and therefore unnecessary extra costs.”

A variety of special challenges

Oskari Muhonen explains that the groundwork for the tower blocks’ fire safety was already laid during the construction of the Redi shopping centre. “The tower blocks are a continuation of the shopping centre, as they are built on the same podium. The future tower blocks were already taken into account in the loop design of Redi’s fire alarm systems and in defining the loudspeaker lines of the voice alarm system. At the design stage, we went through the spaces in the podium and established where the property boundaries run. This was important, because each property’s fire alarm system must clearly be the responsibility of that property.”

Fire protection design for a high-rise building has its own special features. “For example, special attention had to be paid to the cabling and its routing. The location of the control panels also had to be considered differently than in a lower building. In the tower blocks, the panels are distributed across different floors.”

Controlling the lifts in a fire situation also required particular consideration. “The tower blocks share a basement with the shopping centre. This means that if, for example, there is a fire in the shopping centre, the lifts in the towers cannot be driven down. The towers have more control functions related to the lifts than an ordinary building. Generally speaking, it is our responsibility to make sure that everything works as specified in an evacuation situation. This requires a lot of programming expertise and equipment knowledge. All the systems have to work together seamlessly.”

The best fire protection for every tower

PAP has supplied fire alarm and voice alarm systems for the Kalasatama shopping centre and residential towers. In addition, exit signs and emergency luminaires, cost-effectively integrated into the fire alarm system, were supplied for the Horisontti tower. In total, well over a thousand fire alarm field devices were installed in the towers, as well as hundreds of emergency and exit sign luminaires in Horisontti. The scope of delivery also included numerous fire alarm control panels and display panels.

Voice alarm in the towers is handled by a voice alarm system. “The system in each tower comprises a central unit, hundreds of loudspeakers and several pieces of control equipment, routers and amplifiers. Everything works seamlessly together with the fire alarm system. The fire alarm system automatically triggers announcements in the required location according to predefined logic.”

A great deal of intelligence was also programmed into the equipment. “The fire alarm system sends numerous different control outputs to other systems, for example for automatic extinguishing, smoke ventilation, fire doors, lifts and ventilation. Floor-specific pre-warning and evacuation announcements were programmed into the emergency announcement system. In Horisontti, we also programmed the testing of the flow switches to be carried out directly from the fire alarm system. This makes things easier at the maintenance stage, as the operation of the flow switches can now be verified effortlessly during the monthly testing of the fire alarm systems.”

For sites that call for the bigger picture

Over its history, PAP has built fire protection for numerous large and small sites around Finland. The Kalasatama tower blocks have given PAP solid and diverse experience of high-rise sites.

“We are passionate about fire safety for every kind of site. We add the most value on sites where large, complex entities need to be understood and managed. The smartest thing is to involve us in the design as early as possible. We are up to date on the latest equipment solutions and regulations, for example, and we are happy to assist the fire engineering designer in delivering the best, most modern system that is a perfect fit for the site. When we join forces as professionals right from the start of a project, we can create fire protection for the site that is reliable, functional and cost-effective throughout the system’s life cycle.”

See also: How fire safety was delivered in the Kalasatama towers, The impressive towers of Kalasatama, design of fire alarm and fire safety systems and voice alarm systems.

Article photo: Mikko Ala-Peijari / PhotoCom Oy