Excel Redstone Deploys Maxxess Integration at London Development

Excel Redstone is implementing an ambitious integration project, using Maxxess Efusion technology, at the first high-rise residential and hospitality development in the City of London for many years.

Currently under construction, the £300m 43-storey One Bishopsgate Plaza development will see security and building management technology operating seamlessly together in a setting that includes both new-build and listed conservation area structures. As well as having 160 new private apartments, when completed the development will include a 237-bed five star Pan Pacific Hotel, a public plaza and a Pacific Ballroom, promoted as the Square Mile’s first dedicated banqueting venue.

Excel Redstone selected Efusion for the project because of the flexibility it allows, enabling rapid integration, off-the-shelf, with a wide choice of security, safety and business-critical technologies. “The customer wanted a seamless, single interface that allows front of house guest services to be linked to back of house functions and give the highest operator efficiency and enhanced customer experience,” says Matt Salter, Director at Excel Redstone.

With its modular, building block approach, Efusion provides an umbrella management system for an expanding choice of preferred technologies for commercial, hospitality and mixed-use settings, including guest check-in, reservation and visitor management, access control, surveillance, and building systems. In use, Efusion drives efficiency and eliminates gaps in security by removing the need for operators to continually switch between systems.

Two of the most important technologies being integrated by Efusion at One Bishopsgate Plaza are the full-featured, Oracle Hospitality Opera property management and guest service system, and a 266 door Assa Abloy wireless electronic locking solution. Excel Redstone is also using Efusion to integrate Zenitel IP intercoms, a Kone lift system, and the building management system using the BACnet protocol, which will enable estate managers to optimize energy efficiency based on usage and occupancy.

The Efusion integration also allows a more flexible approach with the surveillance system - for example, making it easy to use a choice of Axis cameras, with specialist mounts, in the listed conservation areas of the site, integrating them with over 350 Mobotix fixed lens and panoramic cameras through the highly-secure Wavestore video management system. The surveillance and other security systems will be monitored live from two separate control rooms, one for the hotel and one for the wider estate.

As well as integrating these and fitting out the control rooms, Excel Redstone is also responsible for networking and AV systems at the development: “Our engineers are pre-staging the entire system off-site,” explains Salter. “This is allowing us to test everything in advance and to reduce packaging waste and environmental impact on site. It also lets us work more efficiently, in step with the ongoing construction schedule, floor by floor.”

“We are seeing a growing trends towards automation and centralised management, and the solutions being deployed at these locations are increasingly sophisticated – but that doesn’t mean they have to be complex,” says Lee Copland, Managing Director EMEA at Maxxess. “Quite the opposite in fact. By keeping things simple and integrating off-the-shelf with the widest choice of technologies, Maxxess is providing secure solutions that are easier to install and to use than traditional alternatives.”

One Bishopsgate Plaza is the latest of a growing number of mixed-use developments - including hotels, retail, office and residential complexes -  to use Efusion to streamline security, safety and facilities management.