Low-voltage systems vital to safety and quality of life for memory care
Tazergy has the bandwidth to determine what the client envisions and the expertise to address those requirements.
Kirk Sund
AIA LEED, AP, Principal of CBTWO Architects
Preston Greens in Lexington, Kentucky, provides personal care and memory care for up to 139 residents. Recently constructed, the senior living community offers studio and one- and two-bedroom apartments, each wired with cable and Internet. The community is amenity-rich with fine dining and a bistro/bar, spa, fitness center, media room, courtyards, dog park, and a putting green.
CBTWO Architects, a firm with deep experience designing senior living projects, planned Preston Greens to enhance residents’ daily lives, creating spaces that nurture the individual and celebrate the community. From the beginning of the design process, CBTWO Architects anticipated the need for a partner to support, design, and install the low-voltage systems vital to integrating safety and convenience for residents and staff.
“Historically, we would work with electrical engineers who would take on the role of local digital designer by default,” says Kirk Sund, AIA LEED, AP, Principal of CBTWO Architects. “The issue is that word – default. The job fell to the EE, but they weren’t an expert in low voltage.”
Sund describes working with engineers and contractors on previous projects in which systems were either under or over-designed, resulting in an infrastructure that originally didn’t perform well and didn’t meet expectations. Sund and his team also ran into communication issues in which important information and preferences were not passed along to CBTWO, creating problems for both the architect and the contractor. “Tech is one of our considerations, but it’s not our focus,” Sund adds.
For Preston Greens, Sund indicates CBTWO Architects wanted a partner with low voltage expertise to obtain the exact configuration needed – not too much and not too little. Considerations included accommodating the residents’ activities of daily living, the goal of seamlessly integrating software and building components, also concentrating on the community’s purpose as a memory care campus. Contact Tazergy about low-voltage design and installations for senior living. “Tazergy showed us what levels and options were available so we could justify the infrastructure that needed to be in place,” Sund says. “They gave us the details we needed – for example, the difference between cat6 and cat6a Ethernet cables. They could show us why these details mattered and how each decision would impact a particular space.”
By relying on Tazergy’s tech expertise, CBTWO Architects got the spec and installation they wanted for Preston Greens gaining overall cost savings. Instead of starting with one aspect of low voltage systems, such as entry points, Tazergy brings a universal approach to the entire building – network infrastructure, doors, internet access, sound systems, and more, to give the client the functionality they desire for overall operations.
“Senior housing has lots of safety and security issues, in which low voltage is critical,” Sund says. “Low voltage is a growing field; one that’s becoming more defined. Tazergy has the expertise of designer and contractor in one, and with over 130 apartments plus the common areas and secure accessibility areas, this was not a small job, and it was a job well done.
