Due to steadily increasing numbers of students, the WU had to relocate to various sites in Vienna several times in its history. The previous location in Althanstraße – originally designed for around 9,000 students – was already fully occupied when the university moved there in 1982. In the 1990s, the number of students grew further and eventually settled at over 20,000. As a result, in 2009 work began on a new campus in Vienna’s second district to the east of the Prater park.
What was ultimately created was an open site with clear spaces and green areas, with a total of nine standalone and very differently designed building complexes distributed across it. The heart of the WU campus is the Library & Learning Centre designed by the Zaha Hadid design office. It houses central service facilities, banquet halls and a library, among other areas.
Even during the planning stage for the WU campus, the topic of security played an important role. A viable concept had to be developed, in particular for the large outdoor areas – accessible day and night – to protect students, faculty, staff and visitors against attacks and thefts, while respecting their personal rights. Another key task of the security technology was visual support for emergency services in the event of an alarm or when securing escape routes. Design aspects also needed to be taken into account; cameras had to be placed as inconspicuously as possible, and could not in any way affect the overall architectural impression – a tricky task for the installation engineers in particular.
The challenge faced by the WU campus was to reconcile the requirements of security and fire protection with protecting personal rights and video data. Coda Video does both.
The challenge faced by the WU campus was to reconcile the requirements of security and fire protection with protecting personal rights and video data. Coda Video does both.
An invitation to tender was launched for the security technology on the WU campus. Siemens AG Austria was chosen because of its overall comprehensive concept, which also took the architectural features into account.
Coda Video was chosen as the video management system; thanks to its flexible and modular design the Hexagon solution is expandable and can be easily connected to third-party systems. For the WU campus, this was important because all security systems were to be linked and managed via a centralized building management system.
As the public spaces on the WU campus also needed to be secured, observing the highest possible standards of data protection and maintaining the privacy rights of students, faculty, staff and visitors were of paramount importance. In this respect, Coda Video offers encrypted communication between the server and client and also supports secure connections to cameras. In addition, sensitive areas can be masked in the camera image or persons can be made unrecognizable by pixelation; access to original data can be restricted to authorized personnel.