Case study
Housing estate: monitoring and a parking system
A concept for extending the monitoring and a design for a parking system for a housing community in Warsaw. One was implemented, the other stayed on paper.
- Type
- A project developed at Kol.ski
- For whom
- A housing community in Warsaw, described anonymously
- Scope
- Monitoring concept, parking system design
- Status
- Monitoring implemented in a simplified form, parking at the design stage
Challenge
The existing monitoring did not cover the places residents asked about: staircases, lifts, the bin store and the patio. In the garage, narrow passages and an exit without visibility, so drivers warned each other with mirrors and the horn.
No subscription, and no recordings handed to an outside party.
The community wanted solutions it could maintain on its own.
Solution
Two designs on open components, with the data held by the community and expansion staircase by staircase.
Monitoring
A camera placement plan point by point, with a rationale for each location and field of view. A Wi-Fi mesh network where a cable was not worth it, cameras on Raspberry Pi, door-open sensors on technical doors.
Parking
A system from scratch on Raspberry Pi: plate readers at the entrance and the exit, a central vehicle database, LEDs guiding to an assigned space, collision warning in narrow passages.
Result
The contractor implemented the placement from the concept, but with simpler means. For residents the result is the one that mattered: footage from the places the concept pointed to, stored by the community.
Camera placement
ConceptPoint by point, with fields of view
ImplementationBuilt to the concept
ImplementedCameras
ConceptRaspberry Pi with our own software
ImplementationOff-the-shelf Reolink cameras
SimplifiedConnectivity
ConceptWi-Fi mesh network
ImplementationOrdinary Wi-Fi routers, mostly cabled
SimplifiedDoor sensors
ConceptDoor-open sensors on technical doors
ImplementationNone
Not implementedParking system
ConceptPlates, database, LED guidance, warning
ImplementationNone: monitoring came first
Design onlyLessons
- Placement outlives hardware. A contractor will always simplify the technology, so a design has to stand on its layout and fields of view, not on the brand of the devices.
- Off-the-shelf hardware wins on service. Custom software needs someone to maintain it, and a community has no IT department.
- An unbuilt design remains too. Plate recognition, guidance to a space and collision warning return in our work on devices.
- Standards are born from practice. OOPIS came from the same community: the need for durable labelling of building elements.
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