22^nd Oct 2020

Fire Suppression Commercial Road Student Accommodation in London

Property Details: 

Work began on the 12,000 sq m Commercial Road Student Accommodation scheme last spring and is due for completion in summer this year. Once complete, the development, which neighbours London Metropolitan University, will comprise 417 student rooms with prefabricated bathroom pods and kitchenettes. The accommodation will also include a roof terrace garden and commercial units to the ground floor and be managed by Pure Student Living, which was recently sold by The Carlyle Group to LetterOne Treasury Services.

The project, which is being delivered by Generation Estates as the development manager, has been designed by architects Buckley, Gray Yeoman and is being built by Wates Construction.

The safety of a buildings future occupants should always be number 1 on any construction companies list. The Commercial Road Student Accommodation building will be housing over 400 students deemed a fire sprinkler system not only practical but necessary.

Each of the 417 rooms includes a kitchen space, and small bathroom, making each room a self contained environment. The clients original plan was to install cooker hood suppression units to the kitchen appliances in each room but this was not a very cost effective way to secure the rooms from a fire hazard. It also failed to consider the number of rooms in the building and only one exit route through a single running staircase – a fire that spread could very well block an exit route. A residential sprinkler system would cover the whole room, and suppress the source of the fire before it spread.

 The clients approached Ultrasafe to design a more suitable fire suppression solution.

Ultrasafe Sprinkler Solution:

Our design solution was to install 2 sprinkler heads per room including 1 recessed side wall sprinkler and 1 recessed pendant sprinkler fed by a Pump & Tank Fire sprinkler system fitted into the basement.

With zone valves on every floor and each floor then linked to the buildings fire alarm, this ensured a fire breakout would be noticed and suppressed in the fastest possible way. With a riser running the full height of the building ensured every sprinkler was ready to deal with a situation. Value engineering is a term used widely today, not meaning the work is of a lower stranded but a cost effective solution delivered at a high standard. Ultrasafe designed and filled out a cost effective and practical solution to the clients needs.  

The system design was complied to BS 9251 with the water storage calculation and run time determined by the residential risk. 

Building control and the fire office were happy with our designed solution we were given the go ahead, this saved space and cost to the client.