Page 159 - ELEMENTS EUROPA (EN)

ELEMENTS EUROPA MECHANICAL MANOEUVRING 155

Entrances and exits require a differentiation of access: for leaders, for
officials, for journalists or for visitors. Between the Justus Lipsius and the
Europa buildings, dignitaries’ arrivals and departures, car manoeuvres,
and lanes leading to the car park occur after passing the lodge for access
commands, sheltered from cumbersome protection devices, all of which is
ever so slightly softened by hydroponic green walls indicating the building’s
outskirts. On the Rue de la Loi side, an airlock was set up for personnel
and visitor verification. Used as the way towards the atrium doors, the hall
guarantees the security protocol is observed; it is installed so as not to alter
the perception of the building’s threshold and to insure smooth entry via the
main entrance.

Mechanical movements within the Europa building include the whole
maintenance and cleaning system of the internal and external flat and
curved facades. The list of devices used for interventions is made up
accordingly and includes several devices specifically conceived, drawn and
manufactured for immense walls maintenance: sliding ladders with a mobile
basket; a self-towed basket on rails; a suspended basket on a monorail;
a suspended basket on an articulated truck on rails; duckboard wooden
floors; a telescopic sliding ladder; a self-towed truck with a mechanical
arm; a single telescopic truck for a single person; individual anti-fall hooks;
fall-arrests; single casement windows with holding mechanisms for bottom-
hung casement windows; roof edge railings; access ladders; movable tower
scaffolding; safety rails; internal sliding basket. The particular specifications
gives an idea of the level of requirements to comply with: conception
and execution of machines and devices, definition and validation of their
technical principles, operating conditions and user-training, standard
situation behaviour, access in disrupted situations etc. Maintenance and
safety, risk prevention and labour law contribute to creating a completely
mechanised environment where all surfaces must be accessed and treated
and in which agents must be rescued anywhere in the working space.