UTC Execs Share Insights on Interlogix and LenelS2 Brands, Center for Intelligent Buildings
Take an inside look at UTC’s Center for Intelligent Buildings. Also, executives weigh in on the Center’s impact, as well as busy happenings in the LenelS2 and Interlogix branches.
To aid with the building’s energy efficiency efforts, dynamic glass was installed that adjusts shading automatically during the day and lets in tons of natural light. One thing visitors will notice on display at the Center for Intelligent Buildings is transparency, such as the escalator’s inner workings.
Interconnected Ingredients Inside the Intelligent Building
Companies can talk the talk about how their installed products and technologies can yield security, life safety, efficiencies, cost savings, sustainability and more for their customers all day long.
UTC set forth a mission to walk the walk, as it began planning for its Center for Intelligent Buildings back in 2015 and opened the facility — which serves as both a customer showcase and global headquarters for its Climate, Controls & Security division — in April 2018.
The 224,000-square-foot building is as sophisticated as it gets and enables UTC Climate, Controls & Security to share its brands’ interconnected story to the thousands of visitors who walk through the doors this year, not to mention the 500 employees who experience the fruits of the company’s $115 million budgeted labor of love on a daily basis while working there. Naturally, security and life-safety elements abound.
LenelS2 BlueDiamond Cloud-hosted mobile technology provides smartphone-based credentialing and connects to the LenelS2 OnGuard access control and visitor management platform. Roughly 175 doors are controlled via OnGuard, and employees and visitors pass the registration desk through Boon Edam turnstiles.
Approximately 150 Interlogix TruVision IP cameras keep watch, as does 24-hour guard service from AlliedUniversal. Edwards FireWorks software enables remote management of its EST3 life-safety control platform that centralizes management of detectors, alarms and mass notification devices.
But the technology goes well beyond security, governed by AutomatedLogic’s WebCTRL building automation system that ensures energy efficiencies and smooth operations of Carrier chillers and HVAC, Otis elevators, dynamic glass and more.
On top of the parking garage are 892 400W photovoltaic solar panels that produce about 28% of the building’s power, and monitors inside display statistics such as energy consumption, water usage, and carbon dioxide footprint.
“It’s designed to LEED Platinum standards, and we’re on track to where we should be for certification,” says Greg Brostowicz, director, communications – Fire & Security Products. “There’s really a big focus on sustainability here. The dynamic glass is on the east and west sides of the building, so shading automatically adjusts. We have electric car plugin stations in the parking deck, bike racks outside, water reuse, we have an herb garden, a lot of natural lighting in here. You also may notice it’s a lot easier to breathe in here because we have 100% outside air being pumped in.”
UTC Climate, Controls & Security is also keen on transparency; visitors and employees can see into ordinarily behind-closed-doors rooms like the Building Intelligence Center and second-floor datacenter that’s adjacent to the commercial experience center.
And it’s just the beginning. The building sits on 30 acres of property, for which UTC could conceivably build two more such facilities.
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About the Author
Arlen Schweiger
Arlen Schweiger is editor-in-chief of SSI's sister publication, CE Pro. He was SSI's managing editor from August 2018 to June 2023.
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