“ATEIS Has been asked to look at the overall design of the project and the possibility of removing the old system and retrofitting a new ATEIS public address/voice evacuation solution, ” recalls ATEIS Middle East managing director Hussam Al Haddad. “The original system was built 12 to 13 years ago, and at that time the technology available compared to what we have today, there is no comparison, there was much less available in the technology then. We changed the core of the system but kept the speaker circuits as they are.”
SET AMONGST THE STATEMENT architecture of downtown Dubai, the angular twin structures of the Jumeirah Emirates Towers have long been an iconic feature of the city’s skyline. Long before the likes of DIFC and the Burj Khalifa rose out of the sand along the Sheikh Zayed road. the Emirates Towers stood proud as a symbol of what was to come. Unsurprisingly then, when Ateis Middle East opened its Dubai office in 2006, this was one of the ‘dream projects’ it wanted to be a part of. While the towers had been up and running for a number of years, their stature meant that any work carried out there would represent a statement project that would underline the achievements of the manufacturer in the region.
Fast-forward six years and the now well-established local office has done just this with the retrofit of a completely new PA/VA system into the Jumeirah Emirates Towers. ‘We were asked by our distributor BMTS to look at the overall design of the project and the possibility of removing the old system and retrofitting a new Ate-is public address/voice evacuation solution,’ recalls Atei’s Middle East managing director Hussam Al Haddad. ‘The original system was built 12 to 13 years ago, and at that time the technology available compared to what we have today, there is no comparison, there was much less available in the technology then. We changed the core of the system but kept the speaker circuits as they are.’
The different areas of the Jumeirah Emirates Towers are well-known, with three sections offering very different uses. The 350m office tower and its slightly shorter twin, the hotel tower, are connected by a central podium of shops and restaurants – the Boulevard. Each of these areas has different regulations that the PA/VA system needed to meet. and they all had to be integrated into one synchronised system.
