On campus

University College London (UCL) has future-proofed its new, state-of-the-art engineering building by adopting an advanced networking infrastructure. This is based on an integrated Nexans copper and fibre optic cabling solution. The network was installed by GCL, a certified Nexans systems partner. It incorporates over 5000 Lanmark Category 6 data outlets and around 900 fibre desk connections.

Building for engineering

The new £19 million, ten-storey extension to the engineering building was completed at the end of 2004. The building is on an urban site in a conservation area at the heart of UCL’s main campus in Bloomsbury, London. It provides 9156 m2 of space to bring the departments of computer science and medical physics and bioengineering together with UCL’s other engineering departments.

The new building was designed by the architect Grimshaw. It is set in a former courtyard at the back of the existing engineering building, to which it is linked by a series of steel bridges at levels one to seven. On each floor the bridges open onto a two-metre wide corridor parallel to the east elevation – the public facade of the building. These areas separate the linear strip of common areas and lobbies facing onto Malet Place from the main volume of the building to the west.

The building will accommodate around 1000 staff and students. It is laid out on a six metre grid designed to tie in with the existing building. This provides the maximum useable floor space and is custom-designed to give the best facilities for its occupants’ specialist needs.

The areas that need natural daylight and views, such as lecture theatres, seminar rooms, general laboratories and offices are on the perimeter. Other rooms are in the middle of the building or the basement: X-ray and laser suites, state-of-the-art engine test cells, specialist labs and darkrooms.

A main entrance foyer, associated circulation zones and virtual reality suite are on the ground floor. The rest of this floor is taken up by a large plantroom and loading bay, reflecting the demanding service requirements for this multi-use building on a complex and somewhat restricted site.

The main contractor for the construction of the building was Kier London. The m&e contractor was Briggs & Forrester. Mace provided the project management for the complete building and the m&e consultant was FaberMaunsell.

Network bandwidth

The high-tech nature of the facilities in the building, such as the virtual reality suite, place major demands on network bandwidth. In order to meet these existing requirements, as well as anticipated developments such as Gigabit Ethernet, UCL decided to implement an advanced network infrastructure integrating Nexans fibre and copper cabling.

The network was installed by structured cabling specialist GCL. After some preliminary site work, GCL started in earnest on a fast track project in May 2004 and completed in November 2004.

Project manager John Barrows said: “The extensive design work carried out by UCL, Nexans and the consultant, including selection of the appropriate products, meant that we were working with what was essentially a pre-specified system.

“This made for a very smooth installation process into designated pathways. Although once on site we did confirm that the pathways would allow sufficient room for future expansion by around 40%.”

Preterminated fibre cables

The vertical backbone of the system is 24-core single and multi-mode Nexans Lanmark-OF fibre. This provides two campus connections to UCL’s Foster Court administration building as well as interconnection with the existing engineering building.

Around 900 horizontal fibre outlets have also been installed to provide fibre-to-the-desk capability. In total, some 44 km of Nexans fibre optic cabling has been installed. The majority of the fibre cables were cut to the correct length and pre-terminated. This enabled the termination procedure, which is crucial to the quality and reliability of the installed network, to be carried out to the highest possible standards under factory-controlled conditions. Where cables had to be terminated on site the procedure was carried out by GCL’s qualified installation team.

Lanmark-6

Horizontal connections throughout the building are provided by over 171 km of Nexans Lanmark-6 untwisted pair (utp), low-smoke copper cabling. This offers the highest performance in Category 6/Class E performance for existing applications, combined with the capability for future growth, as well as being fully backwards compatible. It has high performance for attenuation, near-end crosstalk/far-end crosstalk (Next/Fext), power sum Next/Fext and return loss, exceeding the Category 6 specifications as described in ISO/IEC 11801: 2002.

The Lanmark-6 system features modular snap-in jacks that simplify the installation procedure. Over 5000 network points are available throughout the building, presented either in floor boxes or dado rails. A number are also mounted just below ceiling height for the connection of security cameras and wireless access points.

Nexans’ angled connection points have been used to provide an ergonomic and aesthetically appealing presentation, with the added advantage of easily replaceable dust shutters.

Voice connection between the new engineering building and UCL’s campus telephone system is provided by 2·4 km of Nexans CW1308 copper cabling. Nigel Hayward, UCL’s network connectivity section leader commented: “With over 50 000 network outlets already on campus, our network infrastructure is of crucial importance to UCL. We had two key requirements for the new engineering building. Firstly, we wanted a single, fully integrated cable topology that, as well as network connections, would also incorporate the bms (building management system) including security card access and cameras.

“Secondly, we were investing in a major asset and wanted to be sure the network would be future-proofed to meet the needs of the university and the demands of developing technology over the next 20 years – hence the high fibre content.

“Right from the outset it was clear that Nexans cabling offered the optimum technical solution. It was then a case of working with Kier to select the best installer via an open tender process. As well as being competitive on price and fully qualified, we were impressed by GCL’s track record in installing Nexans systems in similar projects.

“The Nexans/GCL combination has proved a wise choice as the installation has been well thought out and implemented and all the parties involved – Nexans, GCL, UCL and Kier have shown a high level of co-operation. The end result is that the new engineering building is up and running with what we regard as the best network on UCL’s campus.”