The top-tier Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel in Ljubljana offers maximum comfort for guests and employees, and it helps to protect the environment with building technology geared for maximum energy efficiency. Guests, employees and their property are protected using state-of-the-art fire safety and security technology.
In hotels, the risk of fire is very high. Guests who smoke, electrical installations in guest rooms, the restaurant kitchen, the laundry, technical equipment, even the parking garage – there are countless potential sources of fire in a hotel.
According to a U.S. study, most hotel fires break out in the kitchen, followed by guest rooms where the risk guests are exposed to is particularly high when a fire breaks out at night. At the same time, guests expect not only to enjoy the highest level of comfort at the hotel of their choice but also to feel safe and secure – rightly so. To ensure this is the case, hotels must be properly equipped. In addition to a wide range of amenities in the guest rooms and elsewhere in the hotel, this also includes state-of-the-art fire safety and security systems.
Not only must they work reliably and provide for rapid alarming in an emergency, they must also prevent false alarms even under extremely challenging conditions.
Today, no hotel can afford to cut corners when it comes to security and fire safety. This is especially true for a newly built luxury hotel such as the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana.
High requirements
Built in 2012, the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel Ljubljana is one of the premier hotels in the city. It offers 208 superior-level rooms, 25 junior suites, two business suites and a 155 m² executive suite. Its location right in the heart of the capital of Slovenia just a few steps from a large variety of shopping, cultural and wellness destinations makes it a great choice not only for business customers but also for tourists primarily focused on shopping and wellness.
The hotel accommodated the requirements of its sophisticated guests from the start, including the planning and construction phase. Urša Radanovič, Executive Director of the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel Ljubljana, explains: “For the building services in our hotel, we needed a reliable partner that not only had high-quality technology and excellent services, but was also willing to adapt them to our specific needs.” The requirements were high: As a top-tier hotel, offering maximum comfort for guests and employees is just one goal for the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel; it also wants to help protect the environment with building technology geared for maximum energy efficiency. Other objectives include protecting guests, employees and their property using state-of-the-art fire safety and security technology and ensuring that the implemented solutions are unobtrusive so they do not interfere with the hotel’s modern architecture.
Cerberus PRO for reliable protection
Siemens Slovenija had the ideal solution. In the spring of 2012, the experts installed a Cerberus PRO fire safety system. At the heart of it is a Cerberus PRO fire control panel which bundles and processes all messages generated by the system and, in an emergency, triggers and forwards alarm signals. The fire control panel’s intuitive user interface was configured with customer-specific texts which guide operators through the correct sequence of actions if an incident occurs.
The system also includes 750 optical smoke detectors, nine heat detectors and 53 manual call points. The parking garage is equipped with neural fire detectors which not only detect fire but also dangerous concentrations of high carbon monoxide. With their intelligent technology, the fire detectors analyze the essential criteria of a fire – smoke, heat and carbon monoxide – quickly and reliably. Thanks to advanced signal processing and parameter sets adjusted for environmental conditions, they are largely immune to false alarms.
To meet the hotel’s aesthetic requirements, many components of the installed equipment, such as surveillance cameras and fire detectors, were color-matched to their environment.
To provide maintenance of the security and fire safety installations, Siemens Slovenija is working with local solution partner A koda plus Ltd. Its founder Roman Zalatel says: “Only Siemens technology is reliable enough to meet the high safety and security requirements of demanding customers like the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel. We have many years of experience with these solutions and are absolutely convinced of that.”
For building automation, the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel Ljubljana uses integrated building management based on Desigo Insight. Guest rooms are equipped with fan coils which communicate with the management station via KNX. Heating and cooling, air conditioning and other disciplines are also connected to the system and can be controlled centrally.
“Partnering with Siemens allowed us to meet our safety, security, energy efficiency and comfort goals,” says Executive Director Urša Radanovič. “In spite of our exacting requirements, the project was completed on schedule. We are very satisfied with the cooperation and the project development.”
Guest comfort, energy efficiency, fire safety and security, cost management – hotel operators face many different challenges. Siemens is very familiar with these challenges and has created matching solutions from its comprehensive technology portfolio. Based on each customer’s specific requirements, Siemens offers tailor-made solutions that ensure superior comfort, optimized fire safety, comprehensive security, maximum energy efficiency and lower costs. More than 30,000 hotels, casinos, amusement parks and cruise ships worldwide are equipped with Siemens technology.
For more information, go to www.siemens.com/hospitality
About the Author
Markus Späni is Application Manager in fire protection at Siemens Building Technologies.
