Victoria & Albert Museum

We were delighted that our VIGIL2 voice alarm system was chosen for this prestigious museum in London.

The Project:

Consisting of nine networked VA racks, the project was achieved by working on a ‘rolling’ basis over a ten week period. The new system had to be installed in racks already on site, from which the older system first had to be removed.

The layout of the building is such that the racks are spaced far apart and are placed behind the scenes in some unusual places – one the areas was a wine cellar to the restaurant in 1840! The nine racks service nine separate zones and a BVR16M voice alarm controller/microphone provides centralised system control. Each rack incorporates a mounted fire microphone for local broadcast.

Placed in the Control Room, the desk mounted VA microphone allows routine paging broadcasts to be made to any or all zones on the network. In an emergency situation, the unit will assume a ‘fire control’ mode – giving it higher priority and live broadcasts will override any commands from the fire alarm panel. The BVR16M is also able to mimic the status of local fire panels, enabling the operator to immediately access the current state of emergency and take control.

Adrian Hill (Adrian Hill Electronics) was appointed by the Project Management Team of Honeywell Building Solutions to supply and install the system and, together with Honeywell site engineer, Steve Jessup, carried out the work each Sunday night for 10 weeks, replacing the existing VA system one rack at a time.

Edmund Fosbrook, the Senior Facilities Manager for the V&A is thrilled with the way the installation has gone and with the system itself. “It was vital that the project ran smoothly – to have to close even 10% of the museum due to problems was simply not an option as far as we were concerned. Our prerequisite was for a system that offered quality, reliability, used well-proven technology and provided a long term solution. Baldwin Boxall’s system is exactly what was required and we are delighted with how well the project has come to fruition. Adrian Hill and Honeywell are to be commended running the project so seamlessly.”