Belgravia, London
The Peninsula London
Building technology and AV integration
- The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels · Prime Developments · Sir Robert McAlpine
- Approximately £11m across more than 600 instructed variations
- 122,876 individual offsite tests completed at OKTOLabs
Summary
The Peninsula London Residences are 24 branded apartments above London's newest Peninsula hotel at Hyde Park Corner, with sales values above £10,000 per square foot. OKTO was one of four specialists tendered for the residential lifestyle technology package and won it. Over five years the scope grew from AV and IT to include lighting, window treatments, apartment BMS, 103 motorised balcony doors and the site-wide traffic management system, all built and tested offsite in Lisburn before delivery.
At a glance
- 01Client: The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, with Prime Developments as development manager; construction manager Sir Robert McAlpine; interiors by Peter Marino
- 02Scope: AV, IT infrastructure, lighting and window treatment control, apartment BMS, security and access, concierge link to hotel services, controls for 103 motorised balcony doors, site-wide traffic management system
- 03Project value approximately £11m, grown from the original trade package through more than 600 instructed variations
- 04122,876 individual offsite tests completed at OKTOLabs before the residence systems went to site
- 05Traffic management system: 32 induction loops, ten traffic-light positions, barriers, shutters and hostile-vehicle bollards across three basement levels, handed over February 2024
- 06First specialist on the project to reach a complete set of Status A drawings
- 07Follow-on appointments direct from individual residence owners and an annual service agreement priced for the client
The case study
The project
The Peninsula London opened on Hyde Park Corner as the most anticipated hotel opening in the city for a generation. Above the hotel sit the Peninsula Residences: 24 apartments from 2,000 to 15,000 square feet, designed by Peter Marino. The developer was The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, with Prime Developments managing the development and Sir Robert McAlpine as construction manager.
The brief
HSH were new to London's super-prime residential market. They needed a specialist who could design and deliver a lifestyle technology system that matched the standard of the building and connected residents directly to the hotel's services. Four specialists were shortlisted. OKTO was the smallest and least known. We won the package on the strength of the proposal, our willingness to work with the design team from the start, and our facilities for full mock-ups and offsite testing.
What we delivered
OKTO was first engaged in January 2017 and signed the trade contract in June 2019. The original package covered AV and IT for the apartments: Crestron control, structured cabling, Cisco networks, Lutron window treatments, and a touch panel in each apartment giving residents door entry, lift call, lighting, climate, and direct access to room service, spa and concierge. The scope grew to include the apartment building management systems, the controls for 103 motorised Schüco balcony doors across three floors, the hotel's site-wide traffic management system, and the lighting and window treatment control.
The challenges
The balcony doors had been bought without a control system. OKTO designed one, sent engineers to Schüco's factory in Germany for two weeks, and built a control panel for every apartment, with intercom calls routed to the resident's touch panel and on to the concierge if unanswered. The traffic management system covered 32 induction loops, ten traffic-light positions, barriers, shutters and hostile-vehicle bollards across three basement levels, and the third-party systems it depended on were only partly designed when we started. We completed the design and brought the parts together. Then COVID arrived.
How we did it
Every apartment system was built in full at OKTOLabs in Lisburn, in a workshop rewired into the room zones of the actual apartments, and put through our eight-phase test regime before it went to site. 122,876 individual offsite tests were completed for the residences. Sir Robert McAlpine witnessed the factory acceptance tests. Site work became optimisation rather than commissioning, and it carried on through lockdown when site access did not. Our drawings were the first on the project to reach a complete set of Status A.
The result
The residences were handed over from September 2023, with the bespoke apartments following through 2024. The traffic management system was demonstrated and handed over in February 2024. Owners of individual residences have since appointed OKTO directly for their own fit-outs, and the client has asked us to price an annual service agreement covering lighting, BMS, doors, window treatments, AV and the concierge interface.
Client view
“The factory acceptance tests we have been involved with the last couple of days have been a resounding success and cement the positive influence OKTO have had on the Peninsula Project. OKTO have continued to outperform the norm at every turn.”
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