Shade Factor provides controls for massive blind installation at Brisbane tower

Decor Blinds was engaged to supply 4450 motorised blinds for the 55-level office tower located at 111 Eagle Street in Brisbane. Designed by Cox Architecture and built by Leighton Construction, the office building has a 6 Star Green Star energy rating.

Shade Factor was sub-contracted to provide the motors and control system, with the controls required to integrate with a BACNet Building Management System (BMS) and drive the blinds to maximise the efficiency of the building.

Shade Factor’s scope included the supply and installation of Selve 40mm motors, Vestamatic SMI motors and LONworks control system for 45 floors of the building.

LONworks and BACNet interface

LONworks is the ideal companion system for BACNet, which is used to operate air conditioning and air handling equipment. The solution comprised:

• Creation of a LONworks backbone running the full height of the building and network on each floor comprising motor control units and motors
• Sensors, including a sun-tracking sensor and lux sensor (dawn/dusk)
• Development of a sophisticated automation program featuring:
  • A sun function that lowers and raises blinds once a brightness level has been exceeded and a delay time has expired
  • A weekend function that increases the delay time, therefore, reducing the number of blind movements and saving power usage
  • A light penetration function that adjusts the height of the blinds incrementally so that sunlight always extends to a maximum of 1 metre from the façade
  • An evening function that raises all blinds so that the special lighting effects of the tower can be seen
  • A local control function that allows occupants to override the automatic system until a holding time elapses
  • An ‘Annual Shading’ that analyses the built environment and retracts blinds when they fall into the shadow of adjoining buildings

Shade Factor completed the control installation on time, within budget and in full compliance with the builder’s specification.

Following this, Shade Factor adjusted various parameters via remote connection to fine-tune the installation to align with the daily operation of the building. While the automatic features were required to be consistent throughout the building, the Warema LON system was locally interfaced to operate the blinds via Dynalite, C-Bus, Crestron, AMX as well as wall switches, remote controls, and LON control screens to address each tenant’s request for local operation.