Atlantic Technology Center

Location: Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada

Year of Completion: 2002

Value of Electrical: $2,000,000

Website: Atlantic Technology Center

Project Summary: In the fall of 1999, the Province of Prince Edward Island announced its intent to construct the Atlantic Technology Centre, an information technology and innovation centre designed to help stimulate growth in the province's emerging IT industry. The result is a 126,000 square-foot, four story complex which will be the most advanced facility of its type east of Montreal. In addition to the state-of-the-art office space, the building will offer small business incubator space for businesses specializing in research and development of technology, multimedia labs featuring leading edge technology, digital surround sound and video projection technologies, digital audio and video post production editing facilities, smart board rooms, cyber café, fitness centre, and public exhibition spaces.

The biggest challenge on a project of this nature was to design a facility that is flexible and, hence, usable by a variety of tenants. To accomplish this task, a raised access flooring system was installed on the 2nd , 3rd, and 4th floors. Under this floor the complete electrical power and data distribution systems radiate from electrical and communications rooms to power and data distribution boxes below the floor thus allowing an endless variety of furniture layouts. Due to the nature of the "Plug & Play" feature of the modular wiring system much of the re-configuration of the system can be accomplished in very little time and without the need of hiring an electrical contractor.

With respect to the lighting design and in consideration of the high density of computer terminals, the complete lighting system in the office areas utilizes an indirect lighting system. In addition, the lighting control is accomplished through a combination of local and master controls all connected to a low voltage computerized lighting control system.

Some of the electrical design features incorporated into this project include:

	Building Card Access Control and Monitoring.
	Exterior and Interior Closed Circuit Television Monitoring Systems.
	Training Room Sound Reinforcement Systems.
	Full production quality theatrical computer based and controlled lighting system.
	Video conferencing and multimedia theatre.
	Leading edge fibreoptic special effect accent lighting system.
	Fire Alarm and Protection Systems.
	Fibre optic main data backbone and Local Area Network Data Systems.
	Energy Efficient Fluorescent Lamps and Electronic Ballasts.
	Surge protection and uninterruptible power supply systems.
	500 kW emergency standby generator complete with wrap-around isolation automatic transfer switch.