Western Europe’s tallest building, The Shard, is now protected by an intelligent fire panel network from Advanced.

The dramatic 310m (1,016ft) tooth of glass has transformed the London skyline and is described by its developers as a vertical city of high quality offices, world-renowned restaurants, the 5-star Shangri-La hotel, a viewing deck and exclusive residential apartments.

An intelligent fire detection network from Advanced was specified to protect the Shard. The ‘shell and core’ system, which uses Advanced’s world-beating MxPro 4 analogue addressable panels, covers the landlord areas and currently consists of 20 panels on a fault tolerant network. The system is easily expanded as tenants occupy floors by adding more MxPro 4 panels. The system is monitored in The Shard’s Fire Command Centre via a complete graphics package running across two screens. Screen one indicates fire status across the building, while screen two displays the smoke dampers that are controlled via the graphics package. Evacuation is via a dedicated voice alarm system.

The MxPro 4 is part of Advanced’s unbeatable MxPro multiprotocol panel-only system. With a choice of two panel ranges, four leading detector protocols and a completely open installer network, MxPro offers installers and end users more choice and performance and no restrictive manufacturer contracts.