The Aurich Education Center in Germany boasts a unique architectural style, with its avant-garde design and shimmering exterior making it highly recognizable. Its integration of exhibitions, academics, and practical teaching makes it a model of modern learning.
Educational institutions in Aurich, such as Gymnasim Ulricianum , have used the venue to develop entirely new teaching models for natural sciences (including chemistry and biology).
Can a room automation concept meet the diverse needs of building users?
The planners provided a positive answer during the construction of the Aurich Education Center in Germany, where they utilized WAGO's building automation solutions.
The success of the building automation system at the O'Risi Education Center lies in the fact that, despite the many different user needs that are intertwined, the center follows a consistent and clearly implemented overall philosophy.
It can be called a success because all those involved in the planning and construction worked together from the early stages of planning to promote the development of the project —a particularly ideal comprehensive plan.
The concept of connectivity throughout
Now, employees have full system access from anywhere in the building, which benefits operators. Automation is a unified whole, and even the panels on the distributed controllers scattered throughout the building are completely consistent.
Air conditioning was a major challenge in the building's automation system. Crowded areas needed to be treated differently from lecture, seminar, or office spaces. This posed a problem for the building's management company, as they needed to know how much air was flowing where and to what extent it needed to be heated.
“Our goal is to operate the building at the most reasonable cost possible,” said Gerhard Boekhoff, the property and building management manager for the city of Orish, the company’s sole shareholder . To differentiate public areas (such as exhibition spaces) from rooms used or rented by companies and institutions, it is also necessary to understand the exact energy flow and associated operating costs. For fair calculation of utility bills, all data must be measured for the media used, such as ventilation, air conditioning, or heating.
Using the WAGO controller as the central interface
The WAGO PFC200 controller is responsible for collecting and providing data in the building and controlling heating and cooling circuits, room temperature control, ventilation, and controlling coolers and heat exchangers.
Visitors can observe how the automated systems work in the West Wing of the O'Risi Education Center, which is open to the public.
The controller forms the central interface for many different areas in building technology. Sensor data used for consumption measurement is transmitted via MP-bus. MP-bus , as another communication protocol, is used to control actuators or control valves.
Coolers and heat exchangers are connected via Ethernet, as are the control systems comprised of WAGO controllers and the tablets used for operation and visualization. The Orich Education Center is divided into eight buildings and functional areas, with WAGO controllers serving as the focal point in each.
EnOcean communication enhances flexibility
Since the west wing of the Orich Education Center is primarily used for hosting various exhibitions, wireless technology is employed for room environment control.
The reason for using wireless field devices based on EnOcean communication is that partition walls need to be used to change the configuration of public spaces depending on the specific exhibits, displays, and the needs of guiding visitors.
With the integrated program on the function card, all parts of the building automation system can be directly connected to the WAGO-I/O-SYSTEM 750, regardless of the communication protocol used by the subsystems or the tasks performed in a particular area of the building . The controller packages all accumulated data and uses TCP/IP for network communication.
The secret to success lies in an open mindset and sincere cooperation.
In this project, various concerns, space requirements, and the investor's vision had to be integrated. "We equipped the Oriskie Education Center with the WAGO-I/O-SYSTEM 750 because the system is suitable for a variety of applications and can complete very complex projects at a reasonable cost," said Lüßen .
Today, the Aurich Education Center in Aurich serves as a textbook example of how to clearly conceive and fully implement building automation. WAGO's open building automation system played a crucial role, enabling flexible automated control of the building to meet diverse functional requirements.
