Bow Tower

Description

This 1.7 million sq.ft. office building was designed to be the headquarters of EnCana and Cenovus Energy. The building is the tallest office tower in Canada outside Toronto.

The Bow fire alarm smoke management system was complicated due to the fact that the parkade covers two city blocks, and the tower consists of four individual full height atriums with adjacent tenant floor areas designed with openable windows to the atrium. Each atrium is fully independent of each other along with the independent parkade area for smoke management and control. Smoke management and control consists of providing pressurization of all floors other than the fire floor and either atrium pressurization or exhaust depending if the alarm originates on the fire floor or the atrium.

m+b worked with the electrical contractor and their selected fire alarm manufacturer, to prepare shop drawings for the necessary initiating devices, the devices required for smoke control, the floors that the nodes cover and the fire alarm control panels in the CACF room. The shop drawing process included gathering information of the intended smoke control sequences, the intended alarm signalling sequences, the elevator control sequences, the security release sequences, the sprinkler sequences for the specially installed misting system for the 4 atrium areas, and the sprinkler pre-action systems. The information gathered was developed into matrices depicting inputs and outputs of the various sequences ready to complete the programming of the fire alarm system. The collaborative intent was to make the building manageable as well as maintainable for the landlord.