In the USA, Delaware College of Art and Design has chosen a smart access control solution from SALTO Systems to secure its urban campus student housing apartments.
Located at 600 North Market Street in the center of downtown Wilmington, the Delaware College of Art and Design (DCAD) is a creative partnership between the Pratt Institute and the Corcoran College of Art and Design, two of America’s oldest colleges of the visual arts.
Housed in a historic art deco building that has been newly upgraded and renovated, its educational facilities include computer imaging and graphics labs, darkrooms and photo studios and painting, drawing and design studios. It offers associate degree programs in six disciplines: Animation, Fine Arts, Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography and Interior Design
"As specialists in the field of College-tailored access control systems, the SALTO XS4 solution was ideal for Delaware College of Art and Design," says Terri Sopko, SALTO Systems Inc, Regional Business Manager.
"Working in consultation with DCAD we designed a highly secure and flexible networked access control system to meet all of the requests of the College. The advanced system design incorporates XS4 electronic mortise locks with deadbolts, ‘Hotspot’ wall readers and rim panic devices all controlled via MIFARE enabled key fobs.
Since DCAD encourages residential students to be part of its downtown urban campus, it offers apartment style accommodation in the Saville Apartments directly across the street from its studio and academic facilities. For most students this is their first time living away from home and many bring expensive electronic equipment including laptop computers, cell phones, DVD, CD and MP3 players with them with little thought that they could fall victim to thieves.
This means the College gives security considerations a high degree of importance and to protect against unauthorised intruders and combat potential thieves they needed to upgrade their security arrangements. To do this they wanted to migrate from an old fashioned mechanical key based system that was cumbersome to control, time consuming and expensive to replace if key security was breached to a modern smart access control system that could provide management audit trail information and lock battery status without having to visit all the doors in the building," Sopko adds.
To achieve this two on-line hotspot wall readers utilising SALTO Virtual Network (SVN) technology have been fitted in the Saville Apartments, one in the main entrance and one into the adjacent café entrance. These are complimented by 48 off-line XS4 locks fitted to each individual student apartment together with one rim panic device on the emergency exit door.
The XS4 system needs no hard wiring and provides a totally wire free networked electronic locking solution. It is designed around electronics that use distributed intelligence to pass information between microprocessors in the electronic handle set and the key fob. It allows access profiles to be changed rapidly adding real value to the access management of the building.
Scott Straw, Director of Student Services at DCAD, said: "It’s important to us that our students are safely and securely housed within the Saville Apartment complex. With the installation of our new access control system we no longer have the worry or cost of managing keys or changing lock cylinders, but can now update, restrict or deny access to any lock remotely. This gives us unmatched flexibility and secure and accessible housing for our students, so choosing SALTO has been an excellent investment decision."
