Billed as a “vertical city”, the iconic Shard hosts thirteen floors of exclusive apartments, along with a 5* hotel, award-winning restaurants, offices and, of course, the UK’s highest viewing gallery. We were thrilled to be appointed as the expert in smart home lighting for this project and our brief was to provide a smart home lighting solution for the apartments within this prestigious London building.
Smart Home Lighting Solution for Iconic London Apartments
We were asked to provide a state-of-the-art lighting control system, for each of the exclusive apartments. The apartments host a variety of lighting load sources; these include DALI, LED (linear and downlights) and 5A circuits for decorative floor lamps. To ensure that the dimming and control were flawless, we installed a Lutron Homeworks QS system, with Palladium keypads. Over the years, we have found that Lutron systems consistently perform brilliantly and are ultra-reliable.
Lutron Smart Home Lighting Control System
So that each resident had an excellent smart home experience; we used Lutron Homeworks QS. With scene-setting, geofencing, architectural keypads and the brilliant Lutron Connect app, the residents’ user experience was flawless. Similarly; behind the scenes, the technology was designed to provide robust and reliable control. Importantly, we provided a faultless operation of the lighting circuits and associated systems.
Crestron Smart Home Control System
To provide further smart home features, delivered from the same keypads, we installed a Crestron home control system. This allowed us to integrate various other subsystems, such as the BMS, windows, curtains, window blinds and fire alarm.
Furthermore, to allow the user to adjust the temperature within their apartment, we integrated the Crestron system with BMS via BACNet. As a result, the user can create their perfect environment, with lighting and heating control at their fingertips.
We pre-wired the apartments for various AV scenarios and we designed the Crestron system to accommodate this future expansion.
Each time a resident’s preferences became known or changed, we could personalise and expand the system. This would ensure that the technology perfectly suited the way they wanted to interact with their home.
Motorised Windows, Blinds and Curtains
We integrated the motorised windows, exterior blinds and curtains with the home automation systems. For instance, the user could select pre-defined shading scenes or they could manually control the levels. This provided the perfect level of shading within the apartment.
Engraved Lutron Keypads
The engraved keypad buttons showed all of the control functions available, including lighting, HVAC and shading. Therefore, the user would never be unsure of the functions available within the room; the keypads are simple to use and intuitively programmed. For the homeowner, their family and guests, the whole system was consequently very simple to use.
Fire Alarm Integration
Importantly, for peace of mind, we integrated the Lutron lighting system with the fire alarm system. If an emergency event should occur, the control system would execute a set of pre-programmed steps; these include turning all lights on, locking keypads, opening curtains etc.
In Conclusion
Naturally, we were all very excited to play a part in delivering these superb apartments along with our project partners. We had to be very organised in our operational tasks. This, for example, included booking our goods deliveries in and working with the build team to requisition the goods at the right times. This was to ensure that we met the project milestones for the hand-back of the apartments.
In short, our engineering team were very happy to be working in this iconic building and enjoyed seeing beautiful sunsets over the capital. It’s always a great pleasure to revisit the apartments for service and maintenance.
For further reading, please see our articles: “Motorised Blinds – How To Control Natural Light”, “Lutron Lighting Control – Lakeside Home” or Why Upgrade to Lutron HomeWorks QS Lighting Control System?. Here is an article about our virtual consultation services. Finally, here is another project featuring home technology.
Team members on this project
Michael, Pat and Mogan.