Even before the pandemic, the process of building design and CAT-B fit-out projects was changing. The advent of smart buildings, developments in access control, increasing automation and the rising demand for eco-friendly and sustainable buildings and construction methods were driving fundamental changes in thinking and implementation.
Then the pandemic hit – forcing urgent and potentially life-saving changes upon business – pushing safety and wellbeing to the very top of the agenda. Changing the way businesses operated and drastically changing their use of buildings – with workforces urged not to even set foot in their place of work unless absolutely necessary.
In this rapidly changing environment where science is still learning how COVID-19 works and developing best practices to combat its spread, it is important that buildings are able to adapt, they need to be flexible in internal layout and use or they risk becoming costly white elephants.
Buildings, therefore, need to be fitted out in a far cleverer way than ever before, with more thought and planning, with more in-built flexibility and with as much future-proofing as possible. This approach should not be seen as a negative though, as planning in this way produces a more efficient, more cost-effective, more useful building that is easier to manage and maintain. New technology and systems are enabling an approach that can bring benefits to all.
We are now seeing the limitations inherent in a Traditional Project Specification fit-out and moving to a time where the benefits of Agile Project fit-outs and Enhanced Project fit-outs are recognised and subsequently their deployment is becoming more and more common.
The need for thought and careful consideration when planning a fit-out has never been greater or more crucial. This eBook is designed to assist you by presenting the issues and laying out the options clearly, allowing you to plan the best solution for your project.
While the need for smart buildings incorporating all the latest systems and cutting-edge technology can’t be denied, there may still be projects for which a traditional – almost routine – fit-out will still be the solution that best fits the client’s brief.
Then the pandemic hit – forcing urgent and potentially life-saving changes upon business – pushing safety and wellbeing to the very top of the agenda. Changing the way businesses operated and drastically changing their use of buildings – with workforces urged not to even set foot in their place of work unless absolutely necessary.
These are the elements of a traditional fit-out:
This eBook is primarily concerned with essential services such as:
Security SystemsAll building owners require some form of security, no matter how tight their budget or how casual their attitude to property and contents.
Traditional security involves ensuring that all potential access points are suitably secured against unauthorised entry. This is often as simple as specifying security doors and toughened glass windows, along with sensors and their associated alarm systems and CCTV.
At this level, business security systems are neither intelligent nor linked to other systems – they respond immediately to set triggers.
Access control is more concerned with the interior of a building with users allowed access to different parts of the building depending on their needs and security clearance. This is often implemented with key, keycard and keypad-based systems linked to door locking mechanisms.
Again, these basic level access control systems are not usually linked to other systems, they are often not very intelligent and have few if any, reporting capabilities. It is possible to go beyond these basic systems as we will look at in chapter 4 of this eBook.
Fire SystemsThe most fundamental of the fit-out elements, fire systems are a legal requirement – no building can be built without them, and they have to meet standards appropriate for their intended use.
However, there is still a fair amount of flexibility and a variety of choices when it comes to meeting those standards. There are several different approaches you could take, combining a wide range of fire safety products to create an appropriate system; depending on the budget, their suitability for the project and aesthetic considerations.
You can consider fire systems as three systems working together:
There is a range of technologies and products available that will detect fire – these have different capabilities and different sensitivities, so the key is knowing when and where to use them. Potential uses of the building must be considered, and the types and locations of possible fires anticipated as far as possible to determine specific methods of detection and suppression, along with the deployment of more general detection devices that will cover the widest range of possible situations.
Detector types include:
The choice of detectors needs to consider any potential sources of false or nuisance alarms with a view to eliminating or reducing their occurrence.
Detection technology is constantly improving – bringing new products and more sophisticated detection.
When a fire is detected, building users must be alerted, protected and evacuated. Alarm systems are the obvious first step. These consist of audible and visual units that must be able to alert anyone within the building. Voice alarms and public address systems should give clear instructions for evacuation – these can be recorded, automated or live systems.
In addition, an emergency voice communication system (EVC) can be used to coordinate safety procedures between a control room and wardens and also provide communication to disabled refuges. It will also allow a fire officer to issue instructions should the fire service take control of the evacuation. Disabled refuges should be fitted with fire telephone systems and emergency assist alarms.
When choosing products, it is important to understand that they are not interchangeable – they will have different specifications. For example, different sensors will vary in range, sensitivity, and sensing methods, therefore requiring a greater or lesser number of units to provide the same coverage and safety. Some sensors may only work effectively in a particular position or in certain areas. Because of the number of possibilities, it is important an expert with knowledge of the effective permutations is involved, so that safety requirements are met without stretching the budget.
BS 5839-1:2017 recommends that a fire detection system is designed by a competent person, who takes responsibility for completing the design and signing off a ‘Design certificate’ H1.
Technology, innovation, market pressure and workplace changes are all driving change. So much so that traditional projects will become the rarity rather than the rule. Many of these building technology systems have become affordable and others create efficiencies that will bring significant cost benefits. Enterprise access control solutions, for example, offer endless open protocol scaling and multi-tech, multi-layer API configurations which can be a game-changer for customers.
Richard Huison, Regional General Manager, Gallagher Security Europe
Every aspect of a building, from its specification, it’s construction, it’s use, management, maintenance and even its end-of-life has changed over the last few years due to changes in technology, business circumstances, legislation, a stronger focus on eco-issues and sustainability, and the pandemic.
Standard solutions are becoming less common, with specific systems, products and fit-outs customised to circumstance.
National and local planning policy documents expect developers to develop in a responsible and sustainable way – an accepted way to do this is by utilising the BREEAM methodology of environmental assessment.
There is a specific standard for refurbishment and fit-outs, so a familiarity with this would be an essential part of any fit-out planning.
The technical standard is divided into 4 parts. Refurbishment and fit-out projects can be assessed to a combination of these parts, depending upon the scope of the project.
Assessments are conducted by an independent trained and licensed BREEAM Refurbishment and Fit-out Assessor. Upon successful completion of an assessment; a Refurbishment and Fit-out certificate is awarded detailing the parts assessed and an overall project rating. Project ratings vary from ‘pass’ to ‘outstanding’.
BREEAM has had an increasing impact on the market with developers increasingly aware that far from being another onerous certification process it can actually lead to healthier, more comfortable and safer working environments, which in turn contribute to increased occupier satisfaction, increased productivity and lower staff turnover.
There is an increasing emphasis on not only designing buildings that are sustainable and ecofriendly but on using construction methods that follow the same values.
In the UK, the construction industry is responsible for 32% of landfill waste. A staggering 400 million tonnes of materials are used by the construction industry each year, with approximately 100 million tonnes becoming waste.
Flexible, future-proof building systems can help avoid this waste by allowing existing buildings to be repurposed without demolishing and starting again and setting up new builds with the flexibility and agility to cope with changes.
When it comes to waste, perhaps even more astonishing is that 13% of products delivered to construction sites are sent directly to landfill without even being used. This is not only damaging to the planet but inefficient and costly.
Getting the fit-out right is the key to eliminating this waste and should go hand in hand with the concept of Sustainable Procurement.
Sustainable procurement is defined as “A process whereby organisations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis in terms of generating benefits not only to the organisation but also to society and the economy while minimising damage to the environment.” Sustainable Procurement Task Force Definition (2006; UK Government).
Perhaps the greatest route to eliminating waste is to involve your safety, security and wellbeing
partner from the onset of the project.
Technology has driven significant changes in the way employees work together and in the way businesses operate, opening up new possibilities and creating pressure to evolve to meet the needs of the market and to stay ahead of competitors. Agile working, coworking, hot-desking and working from home are more and more prevalent within multiple types of business.
Collaborative working, outsourcing and partnering with complementary businesses is another trend enabled by technology. It is important that a building’s systems do not become a barrier to all these new ways of working.
A diminishing pool of skilled employees - The number of skilled employees available to employers is reducing, leading to increased competition for the right people. Businesses are having to entice prospective employees to work for them rather than a competitor, and as a result, there is an increasing focus on selling the attractions of the employee’s working environment.
Changing employee expectations - Likewise, employees now have higher expectations of what to expect from the workplace. This has caused businesses to look at how comfortable they can make the working environment and how they can deliver a higher design aesthetic – with all of this feeding into their requirements of a new build or a re-fit.
The rise of working from home - The trend towards homeworking has huge implications for office use – businesses may be looking for smaller offices and certainly offices that are fitted out to accommodate flexible working and hot-desking.
Flexible, activity-based working environments - Building spaces will need to be more flexible, allowing for multiple types of use, rapid reconfiguration and more social spaces than before. For many employees, regular meetings will be the only reason for visiting the office – so the need for safe meeting areas will increase.
The pandemic has caused massive disruption to businesses and the economy, not to mention the toll it has taken on individual lives and overall physical and mental wellbeing.
It is recognised that changes in the way businesses work will be needed – potentially on a permanent basis, to ensure this virus and any future variants or even new viruses are contained and their effects limited.
In the short term, this has led to changes in the way buildings are used, affecting occupancy levels, space design, access control and even to employees working from home and not using the building at all.
We are still learning about COVID-19, how it is transmitted and the best ways to combat its spread. The science is still young – it may be that at some future date we will know exactly what is needed of a building’s systems to create the healthiest and safest working environment, but for now, we are still learning.
As an example, at the beginning of the pandemic, it was thought that touch was the most prevalent form of viral transfer and so measures were suggested that involved constant cleaning, placing external items in a sort of ‘quarantine’ and using contactless systems wherever possible. Building systems such as access control systems based on touchpads would clearly be an issue. Now, we are more aware that the virus is mainly airborne, but touch will be a sensitive issue for years to come.
Not only does the science change rapidly, but the legal requirements can change rapidly too.
The implication for installing new building systems is that they will need to be flexible enough to cope with changes in approach, they will need to have the ability to adapt to different strategies for combatting the spread of viruses, and they will need to be agile so they can be reconfigured quickly as situations change.
In the short term as the effects of the pandemic subside and there is a return to working in offices, five objectives should be considered:
Safety and wellbeing at work has never been more important or relevant. Several factors are combining to bring building users’ comfort and safety to the top of the list of priorities for a modern workplace. The need to attract good prospective employees, the changes in working practices and the obligation to work safely in the light of COVID-19 and its implications are all contributors. For these reasons, safety, security and wellbeing will be primary considerations for building owners, managers and businesses. When planning a building and it’s fit-out they should be considered first.
In recent years, office design has focused on the features that occupants need to work, play socialise and recharge in a healthy environment. New safety and wellbeing-led fit-outs will likely see two major trends emerge:
There is a whole raft of new technologies to monitor building metrics – such as room use, real-time energy consumption, systems performance and building efficiency. But now there are increasing numbers of systems on the market monitoring safety and wellbeing. Systems that can monitor social distancing, ventilation and occupant numbers and technology that can increase safety such as UV lights, antimicrobial fabrics and materials, cleaning systems and more.
| Old thinking | New thinking | |
| Manual checks by Facilities Managers |
Expensive and only a snapshot | Continuous real-time data is more valuable and cost effective |
| PIR | Passive Infrared (PIR) sensors are low accuracy and blunt (informing occupied and unoccupied only) | Highly accurate, intelligent and can distinguish between people and other objects |
| Beam Break | Simplistic and only counts in one direction | Bi-directional, multi-technology and multi-layer function sensors |
| Cameras & CCTV | Invasive, breeds distrust and creates privacy concerns | Anonymous, privacy protecting and dynamic security and wellbeing aid |
| Desk & Seat Sensor | Invasive and unsuited to areas without seating | Scalable and suitable for any room, floor or building |
| Time of Flight | One-dimensional in / out | Machine vision and AI algorithms process 3D images and anonymously detect people |
In the short term, whilst the pandemic is still in effect, screening measures such as fever scanning using thermal sensing systems can be used to screen building entrants. Acting as an initial check, a quick scan with a thermal imaging camera can establish whether a visitor needs to be referred for further medical examination.
Routine questionnaires for building visitors looking at whether the visitor has tested positive for COVID or are experiencing symptoms are likely to become commonplace – even if most employees are likely to self-isolate by themselves and avoid the office – as an extra level of safety. These screening questionnaires could even be completed on a mobile device or at home, before even setting off for the office.
There may need to be areas in the building set aside for health screening – such as desks in the entrance hall and rooms for health examinations.
With a mass and regular vaccination in place, the need for such measures will become less important.
Being able to accurately identify each employee and visitor is the key to effective security, flexible access control and tracking for contact tracing purposes.
There are several traditional methods to confirm identity, such as a system of security codes and keypads, keycards, or passes. Some of these will need to be modified to work contactless in the light of the pandemic.
In addition, there are now many new technologies on the market which are changing the possible ways to check identity. New biometric-based solutions such as fingerprint scanners, iris scanners and facial recognition are entering the market, but currently face some issues of reliability and more importantly, privacy concerns. For example, the legal status of facial recognition has been challenged by privacy groups, which may prevent its deployment by ethical businesses.
With the smartphone become ubiquitous, it is now gaining favour as a way of verifying identity – being less likely to be mislaid than a keycard, and more likely to be carried at all times. Because of their sophistication, their multiple in-built sensors and communication channels they can be used for a variety of reasons – verification of identity, nuanced access control, messaging, establishing location, activity monitoring and more.
In the post-pandemic world, it becomes imperative to link systems together. So access control will link to an occupancy monitoring system to prevent too many people from occupying the same area, and link to systems that control lighting and heating so when access is granted, services are enabled for that location.
Apart from the short-term, anti-infection benefits, contactless offices are all about frictionless, agile, forward-looking, futuristic environments. Occupants can book a desk, check-in and access a controlled area with ease, using a swipe card or mobile device or simply by sitting down and being detected. It has already been widely used for lighting, doors, elevators and automated entrances.
Using smartphones for mobile access control opens up a further world of possibilities – doors could open automatically as the appropriate users approached them, access to data systems and equipment could be enabled to the right users as they sit down at their assigned workspace.
Not only is this smart, but employee apps enable occupants to utilise occupational data for themselves. Allowing them to improve how they plan their routine while at work – finding a desk, booking and accessing a secure, clean meeting room, going for lunch avoiding restaurant queues, accessing the on-site gym at quieter times. Users could even be granted control over their environment – heating, lighting, ventilation – directly from an app on their phone.
A key way to inhibit the spread of viruses is to maintain social distancing – so space management within a building is now a key concern. For building management, this implies an emphasis on elements such as creating open layouts, additional signage, occupancy monitoring and flow control.
Occupancy management can enable a building manager to see where occupants are and to manage access so that occupancy limits can be adhered to.
Monitoring which rooms users are in and what facilities they are using also allows for efficiencies to be made by shutting down lighting and other systems when an area is not being used and to highlight when areas are available for cleaning and maintenance.
For fit-out, refurbishment contractors and facilities managers, occupancy analytics uses data collected from sensors and smart devices to measure movement (especially but not exclusively people) throughout the building or facility. This removes the guesswork from important planning and waypoint decisions for whole buildings, individual floorplates, departments and rooms.
Occupancy analytics refers to the availability and study of data collected by integrated devices and systems that measure real-time movement of people through a building or facility.
Benefits for Fit-Out Contractors and building owners:
Benefits for Fit-Out Contractors and building owners:
Measuring traffic in and out and aligning access control, visitor management, identification and security.
Understand and optimise actual occupancy and usage of rooms, zones, waypoints, whole buildings.
Real-time occupancy data delivered to space users to help plan schedules and avoid queues.
Monitor rooms and breakout zones to ensure you have enough and they are of the right size to meet your occupant needs.
Manage your carbon footprint and reduce energy costs by combining real-time occupancy with heating, and AC control.
Manage and monitoring usage can inform cleaning schedules and infection control.
Given that we now believe COVID-19 is primarily an airborne virus, ventilation has become a crucial factor in combating its spread. There are clearly some challenges involved in increasing the number of open-air spaces within a building, but the ability to open windows without compromising the buildings energy efficiency is important.
Standard ventilation systems will spread airborne viruses if not modified. So the monitoring of air quality is vital along with measures to track and vent any traces of volatile organic compounds (VoCs).
With fewer occupants – buildings need to be as cost-effective as they can be, the more efficiently they can run, the less they will cost per user. Equally, the more productive the occupants are the more value they add to the company they work for, and the more value being in the building adds to the company. Making sure the user’s environment – temperature, air conditioning and surroundings are conducive to their comfort and therefore to efficient working is essential. Systems need to constantly monitor and improve the efficiency of HVAC and energy use.
It is important to remember that other elements also contribute to building users’ health and wellbeing – such as access to natural light and fresh air, plants, landscaping, attractive surroundings, good food and quality beverage options.
With a modern fit-out, post-COVID-19, there are so many elements to consider and carefully co-ordinate, it’s becoming increasingly crucial to select a company to work with that not only understands and delivers all that is needed but who can advise, consult and recommend the right path to take.
The building development landscape has changed so what should you be looking for in a fire and security provider? What are the new requirements to consider?
Systems are increasingly interweaved with other systems, connecting and interacting like a giant web, technological developments are occurring at a rapid pace and clients are becoming more demanding. It’s now vital that a partner not only understands the implications of multi-tech, multilayer system integrations but is able to take a major part in planning them and acting as a consultant in the planning stage. This requires a very high level of knowledge, the ability to think strategically and the will to put the needs of the client first.
After an initial round of planning, is your chosen partner able to help support you in your project proposal? Are they able to back you up with product details, statistics, documentation and consultancy help?
Many suppliers can be tied to vendor agreements or have expertise with only one range of products. Whilst that might be practical within a classic project, new projects demand flexibility and agility, they may require specialist products, or new technology. They may even involve integrating rival manufacturers products and systems.
It’s therefore important to find a partner who understands the product and services landscape and who can put together a package that is the best possible combination of appropriate products and services no matter who they are from or where they are sourced.
Design is important, and aesthetic considerations are now encompassing every aspect of a building – from the biggest elements to the smallest details. For this reason, a partner who understands the importance of design and who can offer alternative products based on their aesthetics is another serious requirement.
Key questions to ask:
It should be clear from this eBook, that buildings can no longer function as a group of separate systems. Fire, security, access control, HVAC, lighting, maintenance and central control systems now need to be integrated and linked together. Doing so allows for total management of a building, bringing efficiencies and cost savings and creating a better, safer and healthier environment for building occupants.
The implications for fit-out are wide-ranging and comprehensive. No longer can services be added separately, or as an afterthought to the building’s architecture. As buildings become smarter, more sophisticated and more alive, all the systems need to combine to become the veins and arteries of the building, fundamental to its existence and built into the fabric of the project from the very beginning.
Services have now become crucial to a building’s success, increasing the complexity and scope of the fit-out, which makes the right choice of partner crucial to the successful delivery of a project. Fit-out and refurbishment partners would do well to remember and reflect the ‘Traditional’, ‘Agile’ and ‘Enhanced’ Specification Models (chapter 1) and develop project solutions that put security and optimised safety and wellbeing within their customers’ grasp.
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