Union Bank of Switzerland last week opened the doors of its new de luxe Broadgate offices to give a peek at how the buildings will look when they officially open next January. With one floor alone housing 800 dealers in a room the size of a football pitch, the building is an example of the […]
Union Bank of Switzerland last week opened the doors of its new de luxe Broadgate offices to give a peek at how the buildings will look when they officially open next January. With one floor alone housing 800 dealers in a room the size of a football pitch, the building is an example of the gargantuan task facing commercial accomodation design and construction companies nowadays. Laing Shoralplan, the joint venture formed by the Laing and Shoralplan construction companies to carry out the UKP65m deal, said that the entire architecture had to be moulded to the technological needs of the bank, and these are legion. Cabling is a top priority, forming the communication veins of the seven storey building and carrying over 30 services from suppliers including British Telecom, Reuters and the London International Stock Exchange to dealers’ desks. Up-to-the-minute cabling techniques have been used, including British Telecom’s ingenious new blown fibre ducting system. This entails building canals into the shell of the building through which fibre optic can be fired at a later stage, should it be required (CI No 1,008). Five vertical power and communication risers through the building link to 41 communication closets, which feed the dealer desks plus 3,000 floor outlet boxes. The dealer desks from Raytheon Co’s Data Logic Ltd are linked together over a 12-core copper coaxial cable network. Ethernet drop cables connect the dealer network to the communication closets which in turn link onto a broadband Wang Laboratories Wangnet. In total, 1.5m yards of cable has been installed, the equivalent of a London-to-Zurich stretch.
